Welcome to the Oct-Dec edition of the Epha Environment Network (EEN) Newsletter.
2004 environment and health milestones
During the first six months of 2004, two major action plans will be adopted in Europe. The first one, an EU Action Plan on Environment and Health is expected to be launched in early June, and include recommendations on setting up a monitoring system and other precautionary legislative action.
The second one, to be adopted by 52 health and environment ministers from the WHO Euroepan Region the 22-25 June will focus on four regional priority goals dealing with: improving air quality; providing access to clear water: reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals and reducing the negative health impacts of transport.
The last days of December brought a flurry of developments on the European environment and health agenda in Brussels.
SCALE developments
The European Commission held a meeting with the Consultative Group on December 18-19 to discuss the first phase of the environment and health strategy - a series of baseline reports summarising some of the issues being tackled by the nine technical working groups (ie monitoring programmes on endocrine disrupters, lead and PCBs/dioxins; respiratory diseases, childhood cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders; research and emerging issues and biomonitoring of children).
The draft baseline reports have been available on EPHA’s website since early December and the Commission will finalise and publish the reports on its website January 9, 2004.
The European Commission will also develop a summary of the baseline reports and publish it on its website on January 16, 2004. For more details.
The next step in the EU environment and health strategy will be coming up with concrete recommendations to guide the EU’s future environment and health legislative policy over the next six years in the form of an EU Action Plan to be adopted by the European Commission in early June 2004.
Future of our children Ministerial Conference Progress was made on a regional European action plan to improve children’s health caused by environmental threats in the context of preparations for the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health. The final ad hoc working group continued negotiations on the Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE) on December 15-16, 2003 in Brussels.
The next ministerial negotiations will focus on the draft Conference Declaration.
All documents and meeting reports for the inter ministerial preparatory meetings, working groups and so on can also be found on the Budapest Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health website
NGO Strategy Conference
70 representatives from 50 international, European and national environmental and health citizens organizations from 29 countries met to discuss priorities and proposals to the Governments of the Pan-European region in the run-up to the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health. The conference was jointly organised by the European Public Health Alliance and the European ECO-Forum in Brussels on 15 - 16 December 2003. A conference report and an NGO statement from the meeting will soon be available on EPHA’s website and the Healthy Planet Forum website
