Environment for Europe

In 1993, at the "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference in Lucerne Environment Ministers adopted the Environmental Action Programme for Central and Eastern Europe as a broad strategy to guide environmental reform in those countries. Ministers also established a Task Force to facilitate the implementation of Environmental Action Programme (EAP Task Force) and in particular to assist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) - and the countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan - to:

• integrate environmental considerations into the processe of economic and political reform;
• upgrade institutional and human capacities for environmental management;
• broaden political support for environmental improvement, and
• mobilise and make cost-effective use of financial resources.

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Mr. Josef Vavrousek, Environment Minister of what was then Czechoslovakia, initiated the "Environment for Europe" process. The first Ministerial Conference took place near Prague, at Dobris Castle, on 21-23 June 1991. Four more conferences followed before the Belgrade Conference that will take place in 2007: the Lucerne (Switzerland) Conference, on 28-30 April 1993; the Sofia (Bulgaria) Conference, on 23-25 October 1995; the Aarhus (Denmark) Conference, on 23-25 June 1998; and the Kiev (Ukraine) Conference, on 21-23 May 2003.