Baltic Roundtable on Local Environmental Policy
18-19 May 2000 in Turku, Finland, the UBC
in co-operation with the Finnish Ministry of the Environment
and other partners organised the Baltic Roundtable on Local
Environmental Policy for forty representatives of environmental
ministries, European Commission, and local authorities and
their networks. The two-day event provided a set of very
seminal discussions.
 On
the basis of these discussions, there seem to be several
reasons for slight optimism. At the national level, effective
policies for supporting local level sustainability work
are either being implemented or under construction and discussion
in all of the countries on both sides of the Baltic Sea.
There also seems to be a relatively wide consciousness that
dialogue and co-operation between the different levels of
administration and the different stakeholders of society
is the key method to proceed. National commissions and support
groups for sustainable development play an important role,
as well as funding for pilot activities.
At the European level, the new policy developments,
e. g., with regard to the 6th Environmental Action Program
and the Framework proposal for Sustainable Urban Develop-ment,
will most likely provide good chances for progress. As some
of the roundtable presentations clearly reflected, work
on sustainable development at the local level, e. g., on
Local Agenda 21, contributes positively to the EU accession
process by improving the policy processes and preparing
ground for implementation of EC Environmental Legislation.
At the local level, many municipalities are
actively implementing good pilot projects and developing
the policy processes. There are also a great number of national
and international networks that successfully support the
municipalities by providing possibilities for exchange,
cooperation and political support.
At least during the Roundtable, the spirit
of co-operation between different BSR stakeholders was very
good. It is this spirit, feeling and practice of partnership
that we need to keep up in order to proceed in tackling
all those difficult problems.
The Roundtable was part of the SUFA Project.
The projects is co-funded by the partners, European Commission
and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. Other partners
of the project, in addition to the UBC, are ICLEI and abo
Akademi University. The roundtable report is available in
print from the UBC Commission on Environment Secretariat,
and downloadable in pdf-format from the UBC website. Participants
of the Roundtable at the entrance of the Old City Hall of
Turku.
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