On 3-4 December 2008, France hosted a meeting of the European Environment
and Health Committee (EEHC) and the second meeting on the draft ministerial
declaration for the Fifth Ministerial Conference “Environment and Health”.
The EEHC agreed on the dates of the Fifth Ministerial Conference. The
conference will take place in Parma, Italy, in late February or early March
2010.
The main committal document of the Fifth Ministerial Conference will be the
Ministerial Declaration. There will be a Strategy on climate change and
health developed for the conference as well. It may be a separate committal
document, or may stay as a policy brief and be referred to in the
declaration and form an annex to the declaration. The European ECO Forum
supported having the Strategy as a committal document. It is important that
the Strategy focuses on mitigation measures that could be implemented by the
health sector, in addition to adaptation to climate change.
The EEHC meeting also discussed the preliminary programme of the Fifth
Ministerial Conference. It includes a session on working with stakeholders
which would highlight NGO work. The European ECO Forum and the Health and
Environment Alliance (HEAL) requested the possibility to organise an
NGO-Ministers roundtable on implementation of the Children's Environment and
Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE), and to organise a second edition of
the CEHAPE Best Practice Awards.
The EEHC meeting was followed by the Second drafting group for the
Ministerial Declaration. The drafting group included the representatives of
Norway (health), Denmark (both health and environment), UK (health), Austria
(environment), Croatia (health), Moldova (health), Armenia (health), Serbia
(health), Italy (both environment and health), Hungary (health), Belgium (health
and environment), the Netherlands (environment), Finland (both health and
environment), Turkey (health), Andorra (health), France (both health and
environment), Germany (both health and environment), DG Sanco, WBCSD, REC,
European ECO Forum, HEAL, youth, and trade-unions. The meeting was chaired
by Leen Meulenbergs (Belgium) with support from Nune Bakunts (Armenia).
The group agreed on a revised structure for the Declaration and confirmed
the need to keep it short, focused and action-oriented. Most of the
discussion focused on specific actions, particularly with regard to the
CEHAPE. The meeting discussed in detail the text of all paragraphs with
relation to CEHAPE Regional Priority Goals (RPGs). Denmark was very strong
in pressing to include nanotechnology, endocrine disruptors, chemicals
cocktail as new or emerging issues. The inclusion of endocrine disruptors
was opposed by Finland. The European ECO Forum raised the issue of asbestos
as requiring action under RPG IV. With support of Belgium and a wording
proposed by Serbia this issue got into the text. Human biomonitoring was
included by Belgium as a tool for environment and health policies.
ECO Forum’s proposal to have quantitative targets for each RPG as part of
the Ministerial Declaration drew much discussion. Several countries (Austria,
Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and Andorra) as well as the WHO/Europe
secretariat supported the idea to have at least one quantitative target per
RPG within the declaration. However, a number of countries, in particular
Finland and Armenia, oppose the attempt to discuss and agree upon targets.
The next steps in the preparatory process towards the Fifth Ministerial
Conference include:
- EEHC meeting (27 January 2009, Luxemburg)
- Thematic meeting on healthy environments (28-29 January, Luxemburg) to
focus on obesity, indoor air, injuries and to review the new text of the
draft declaration
- Second NIS meeting (April 2009, Tajikistan)
- SEE countries meeting (March/April 2009, Belgrade)
- Third High-Level Meeting (27-29 April, Bonn).
For more information please contact:
Iulia Trombitcaia, Eco-Accord, Russia / European ECO Forum
E-mail: iutrombitcaia@hotmail.com
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