Acknowledging the outreach of ENV.net Survey and ENV.net 2013 Roudtable recomendations, EASD – ENV.net Serbia recognized importance of children/youth education for active EU citizenship , through promotion of EU environmental values. We would like to share moments from kindergarten “Pčelice”, from village Šetonje, as promotion event for environmental values in education (held on November 19, 2013). With children and teachers, as well as EASD Team, there were Prof dr Ivica Radovic and mr Ljubiša Antonijević, assistant ministers for education and science.
On November 15, 2013, IPEN Secretariat based in Barkeley, USA, welcome EASD, one of the ENV.net partner, as an IPEN Participating Organization (PO).
IPEN is a global network working to establish and implement safe chemicals policies and practices that protect human health and the environment around the world. IPEN’s mission is a toxics-free future for all.
Right now IPEN has approximately 700 POs around the world. IPEN has eight Regional Hubs, which (among many other things) help to communicate with POs around the world.
The First constituting meeting of the European Union-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee, was held on 15 November 2013, at the National Assembly House in Belgrade ( co-chairs statement can be viewed here ).
CSOs representatives are invited to this important event for Serbia’s EU accession, and among them the Serbian ENV.net partner Environmental Ambassadors for Sustainable Development representative.
Moderator Dimitrios Zevgolis, DG-Climate Action, introduced the panel, which described projects taking place in the Western Balkans and Turkey on low emission development. He noted that most countries have not developed special climate action strategies, while highlighting achievements including the development of a climate project pipeline under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) and preparations for developing inter-institutional coordination. He called for strategic frameworks to improve top-down decision-making, integrated policy development across sectors, and cooperation and coordination. Imre Csikós, Regional Environmental Network for Accession (RENA), discussed the Environment and Climate Regional Accession Network (ECRAN). He noted that ECRAN builds on RENA climate results, saying 30% of the budget will be reserved for climate issues. He outlined the four working groups on: climate policy development and climate awareness; GHG inventory and Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (MMR); emission trading; and adaptation. József Feiler, Klima Politika, discussed the project Support for Low Emission Development (SLED) in South East Europe (SEE). He said the project aims to provide the basis for development of low emission development strategies by providing assessments through 2030 for energy efficiency in buildings and the electricity sector. He highlighted the objectives of electricity modeling in the SEE region including identification of cost efficient intervention, noting that the models will help address questions on the price impacts of policies. Andreas Tuerk, Joanneum Research, Austria, presented the project Low Carbon South East Europe (LOCSEE), noting the importance of finding synergies between projects that overlap. He outlined that their approach included preparation of state-of-the-art analysis in the field of climate change in participating countries, collection of good and bad practices, cross-sectoral National Working Groups (NWGs), capacity building workshops, development and improvement of low carbon policy papers, and development of a regional policy network.
During discussions, delegates from Croatia and Montenegro discussed their countries’ experiences with capacity building projects, noting the utility of modeling and assessments for the preparation of national GHG inventories and welcoming support in particular for human capacity development. A delegate from Serbia noted the importance of regional cooperation and highlighted activities they are undertaking related to climate change under the EU accession process.
(Extract from ENB on the Side – Coverage of Selected Side Events at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference – November 2013)
The third partnership meeting of organizations from six countries participating in ENV.net Project is being held from 5-8. November, 2013., in Milan, Italy.
The first day was dedicated to presentation of activities undertaken in the last months and description in details how each partner organisation is planning to implement activities foreseen in the project strategy in 2014. In the afternoon of the 1st day a practical training session on the use of social networks was delivered by Claudia Vago, consultant.
The 2nd day was dedicated to the EEB Training session on advocacy and monitoring the approximation process to the environmental acquis. In the 3rd day, a Training of Trainer (ToT) was organised in order to identify a common methodology to be used, followed by a short information session on how to use the website, to add pages and posts. The 4th day was focused in defining the project strategy and specific activities for 2014.
On November 5th, 2013, ENV.net Serbia representative participated in the Meeting where draft changes on Law of Waste was presented by Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection. Meeting was organised by Serbian Chamber of Commerce. Presentation was followed by discussion and about 140 persons participated . The day before, draft changes on Law of Environment were presented.
EASD / ENV.net Serbia is concerned that some of changes should be carefully checked related to compliance with relevant EU directives.
Before the last day of the week long partnership meeting, ENV.net partners relaxed taking a nostalgic ride around Milan. The partnership meeting involved a Training for Trainers and a training on Social Media use in addition to the general evaluation of 2013 activities with a potential road map for 2014.
One of the three resolutions adopted at the European Environmental Bureau’s General Assembly (Brussels, 19-20 October 2013) was a resolution of the General Assembly calling on the Republic of Turkey to take the necessary steps to become a party to the Aarhus Convention and ensure its prompt implementation.
The Aarhus Convention (full title: Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) was adopted in the Danish city of Aarhus in 1998 under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The Convention grants the public rights regarding access to information, public participation and access to justice in governmental decision-making processes on matters concerning the local, national and transboundary environment.
This unique multilateral environmental agreement entered into force in 2001 and as of October 2013 has 46 Parties. Turkey was actively involved in the negotiation of the Convention from 1996 to 1998 but did not sign it and has never acceded to it.
Today ENV.net team attended a webinar on the use of social networks for ENV.net action, organised by Claudia Vago.
This event was preceded by a study on the use of internet and social media in ENV.net countries and by the partners themselves prepared by the same consultant (see ENV.net – Where we are)
It was a great opportunity to improve ENV.net capacity to better communicate our messages by using these media. Apart from facebook, which is already known by almost of us, we discovered storify, which allows you to create stories, by combining news from twitter, instagram, flickr, you tube and other social media, and to publish them on the website. Very nice! We will use it soon in ENV.net website…
Moreover we discovered the importance of having an hashtag as a means of grouping ENV.net messages, so that one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it. Try our #envnet !
Then we also find out the way to scheduling posts in facebook (but also in other social media), through the amazing bufferapp.
ENV.net team will continue to work on these tools to find out the best ways to communicate with people, to spread the world, to networking….
On October 18th, ENV.net partner EASD participated to the presentation of Serbia Progress Report 2013 organised by the EU Delegation in Serbia. The presentation, focusing on economic chapters, was followed by a discussion with CSOs representatives.
Environmental chapter had a great attention in the discussion. The main conclusion of this discussion is that there are a lot of challenges for candidate countries in this sector (see EU Enlargement Factsheets – Energy, Climate Change and Environment), and little progresses achieved.
However, the EC conclusion is, in some relevant segments, different from the ENV.net Study conducted in June 2013. ENV.net study
[alert style=”white”] Some background information for SERBIA
Candidate – applied in 2009, obtained candidate status in March 2012. The EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina was launched in March 2011. The First agreement of principles governing normalisation of relations was reached with Kosovo in April 2013. The momentum of reforms has also been reinvigorated in Serbia. The European Council decided in June 2013 to open accession negotiations. The first Intergovernmental Conference on Serbia’s accession negotiations will be held in January 2014 at the very latest, after the Council adopts the negotiating framework, which was proposed by the Commission in July 2013. In the meantime, the ‘screening’ began in September 2013. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) entered into force on 1 September.
