Second meeting of the EU4Environment Regional Assembly

The Regional Assembly of the EU-funded EU4Environment Programme was held in a virtual format on 22 September 2020 via Zoom platform. It brought together about 130 participants, including Deputy Ministers and senior officials from the Ministries of the Environment and of Economy of six EaP countries, representatives of European Union institutions (including the European Commission, the European External Action Service and EU Delegations), EU Member States, the EU4Environment Implementing Partners (OECD, UNECE, UNEP, UNIDO and World Bank). Representatives of civil society and experts were invited as observers. The Regional Assembly was chaired by the European Commission.

In his introductory speech, Mr. Vassilis Maragos, Head of Unit, DG NEAR, European Commission, said: “The EU’s Joint Communication "Eastern Partnership policy beyond 2020: Reinforcing Resilience – an Eastern Partnership that delivers for all" shapes the future policy of Eastern Partnership beyond 2020. This new agenda is based on the overall themes of resilience, environment protection, circular economy, green recovery, protection of national assets, climate, nationally determined contributions, Paris agreement. All this is and will be the key of the future and EU4Environment is one of the key tools of delivery.”

The meeting participants agreed that considerable progress has been made in implementing the EU4Environment since its launch in January 2019 despite the unprecedented challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak that affects people’s health and daily lives as well as economies around the world.

Some of the key achievements included:

Progress in greening support to Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in all EaP countries;
Development of draft secondary legislation on EIA and SEA in Azerbaijan which is aligned with international standards;
Completion of the detailed review of the EIA and SEA legislation in the Republic of Moldova;
Training of over 140 participants on the application of SEA from all six countries;
Assessment of the learning needs for an in-depth training on Green Economy policy development;
Training of over 100 experts on specialized topics related to Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production;
Update of analysis on fossil-fuel subsidies in six countries;
Launch of several communication channels (Web site, Newsletter, country profiles).

Good progress is due to an excellent response from all the EaP countries in pursuing Programme activities. The COVID-19 related restriction required countries and Implementing Partners to reinforce the communication with the countries and use on-line tools and helped to link the activities under EU4Environment with the COVID-19 related economic recovery measures. The participants discussed several steps to accelerate the EU4Environment implementation and transform challenges into opportunities which will be reviewed at the next Regional Assembly in September 2021.

meeting documents

The full version of the Summary Record will be available shortly.
Agenda (English | Russian)
Logistical information (English | Russian)

Presentation slides

Item 1. Introduction (Russian) | OECD & UNIDO

Item 2. Countries presentations:

Item 3. Regional Activities (Russian) | UNEP, UNECE, UNIDO, the OECD, & World Bank

Item 4. Action governance, coordination with other programmes and cross-cutting issues (Russian) | UNEP, OECD & UNIDO

Environment in emerging and transition economies

Second meeting of the EU4Environment Regional Assembly