Enforcement and Compliance Networking in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia
The recently concluded meeting of the NIS Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (NISECEN) held in Almaty, Kazakhstan was the fourth annual gathering which offered a forum for exchanging experience and good practices among enforcement officers and environmental policy makers from the regions of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) and between the experts from these regions and the practitioners from OECD and other countries who are invited to the meetings. The Network meetings enable discussions about better institutional framework and more effective and efficient policy instruments for enforcing environmental requirements, responding to non-compliance and promoting compliance in the region. In addition to enforcement officers and environmental policy makers, the representatives of the NGOs, business and industry are invited as observers.

The Network oversees the implementation of an agreed work program which includes carrying out analysis of selected elements of enforcement and compliance framework, development of guidance documents and case studies, awareness raising, capacity building and networking. The NISECEN was established in 1999 to acknowledge the importance of enforcement and compliance promotion activities in achieving national environmental policy goals.

The Almaty meeting gathered over ninety participants, including high-level officials from environmental agencies (two environment ministers from Kazakhstan and Georgia opened and participated in the meeting) and environmental enforcement authorities, representatives of cleaner production centers, industry, and non-government organizations from the region. Experts and government representatives from the OECD and Central European countries attended the meeting along with the representatives of international organizations, including the World Bank, UNIDO and the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe.

The main objectives of the meeting were to present progress in Implementing the NISECEN Work Program and discuss key documents that have been developed within the Network to serve as an input to the "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference in May 2003 and to discuss problems and opportunities in promoting voluntary compliance with environmental requirements in the EECCA region, including promotion of cleaner production approaches and environmental management at enterprises. The meeting also launched a dialogue between environmental authorities, industry and civil society in the EECCA countries on promoting environmental compliance.

During the discussion on the implementation of the NISECEN work program, the participants endorsed the draft Guiding Principles for Environmental Enforcement Authorities in EECCA region and agreed to submit the document to the Kiev Ministerial Conference. They also discussed a number of analytical and guiding documents, such as reviews of enforcement and compliance promotion practices and environmental permitting systems in the EECCA region, the Toolkit for Environmental Inspection; the Assessment Report on Environmental Management in Enterprises. In addition, the Network Members identified a number of issues that will constitute the core NISECEN work program after the Kiev Ministerial Conference.

During the discussion on compliance promotion, the participants took account of examples of designing and applying instruments for promoting voluntary compliance with environmental requirements that exist in the EECCA region, and worldwide. Case studies and experience from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan were presented along with those from China, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the US. The participants also identified major barriers in applying compliance promotion tools and factors stimulating voluntary compliance. They also discussed possible actions at the country and regional level to strengthen compliance promotion efforts and the ways to facilitate the communication between various stakeholders.

Meeting documents are available on the NISECEN Web site at http://www.oecd.org/env/eap/policy.

Balkan States Begin Training and Exchange Program
The Balkan Environmental Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement Network (BERCEN) recently met in Budapest, Hungary, on September 9, 2002 and issued a report on the status of enforcement and compliance in South Eastern Europe, initiated a new training and exchange program, and adopted recommendations to assist Balkan states in acceding to European Union environmental legislation. BERCEN, established in Tirana in December 2001, is an informal network that facilitates, assists and promotes enforcement of regulations throughout South Eastern Europe by disseminating information and finding ways for participating countries to cooperate and develop projects of common interest.

Report on the Status of Enforcement in South Eastern Europe
The report, Current Legal Structure and Resources Available to the Environmental Protection Agencies and Inspectorates in the Countries of South Eastern Europe, found the implementation and enforcement of new regulations and laws in nearly all BERCEN member countries weak. In addition, it noted that the basic ingredients, including data compilation and retrieval systems, hardware and software to support these systems and training for personnel in the regulatory cycle, are not present in these states.

Pollution Prevent & Control Training
The meeting also reviewed recent "train the trainer" programs that focused on minimum criteria for inspections and integrated pollution prevention and control. The first training session focused on individual participants, while the second training focused on country-by-country performance. This interactive program, featuring lectures, discussions and team presentations offered country teams the opportunity to develop detailed training programs to be implemented in their respective nations. Progress reports on the status of implementation will be given at future BERCEN meetings.

Exchange Program
Based on the findings of the regional report, supra, the meeting decided that the first step in developing a better understanding in enforcement and compliance should be an exchange of information on the inspection systems applied. Therefore, BERCEN will begin an exchange program with the objective of developing the capacity of the enforcement agencies through the exchange of experience between European Union accession countries (AC IMPEL member countries) and BERCEN members. The specific objectives of this project are:

• To bring together the environmental inspectors from BERCEN and the European Union Network with the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL) member countries for exchange of experience related to environmental enforcement and regulatory compliance development;
• To collect information for case studies on how countries carry out inspections and how the exchange of information may improve inspection;
• To provide a forum for the regional exchange of experience and information;
• To enable BERCEN member countries to improve their capacity in order to actively participate and contribute in IMPEL projects; and
• To improve the bilateral cooperation among the enforcement agencies in the region and beyond.

The first exchange program was organized by the BERCEN Secretariat in cooperation with Croatia and is took place in December 2002. The second program will be organized in cooperation with one of the AC IMPEL countries, most likely Bulgaria, and will focus on issues related to the EU accession process. Each program offers training, presentations, and field visits over a five-day period.

Recommendations on European Union Environmental Directives
In a further attempt to assist Balkan states in their efforts to approximate EU environmental legislation, BERCEN also adopted two strategic network recommendations related to the preparatory activities for introduction of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive (96/61/EC)("the Directive") and the implementation of the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 4, 2001, providing minimum criteria for environmental inspections (2001/331/EC)("the Minimum Criteria").

The Directive emphasizes the need to reduce the environmental impact of large industrial installations via reduction of pollution and promotion of cooperation with different stakeholders. BERCEN encouraged member states to adopt standardized reporting procedures on these preparatory activities using the IPPC Directive questionnaire adopted under the European Commission Decision 1999/391/EC.

The recommendation dealing with Minimum Criteria for Inspections seeks to harmonize the principles and operational mode of the environmental inspectorates in BERCEN states. It calls for the adoption of common methodology for key data collection and processing in order to give a realistic picture of the status of the environmental inspectorates in South Eastern Europe. It also encourages members to use standardized reporting on inspection activities based on the IMPEL Guidance on Recommendation 2001/331/EC. For more information on these, and other BERCEN initiatives, visit http://www.rec.org/REC/Programs/REREP/BERCEN.

Chemical Network Launches "Dangerous Preparations" Project
A new "dangerous preparations" project was launched at the Third Conference of the Chemical Legislation European Enforcement Network (CLEEN) held in Copenhagen from September 9-11, 2002. Representatives from EU countries, the European Commission, the Scandinavian countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia attended the conference, which also discussed the results of the EurOzone project and launched an initiative on PCBs.

The new project on the enforcement of the Dangerous Preparations Directive (Dir. 199/45/EC) named ECLIPS, (European Classification and Labeling Inspections of Preparations and Products) will focus on the so-called CMR-substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic for reproduction. An inspections guidance manual will be developed that will include tools for training and reporting standards, resulting in one European strategy for inspections. This will improve compliance and stimulate equal market conditions across Europe. The inspection programs in the Member Countries will start in 2003.

In addition, member states dealing with the problems of PCB's committed to prepare a project plan to address these issues by the end of 2002. In 2003 a guidance manual for PCB inspections will be developed, followed by an operational phase with inspections in 2004.

The conference also reviewed the progress of the EurOzone Project that resulted in the inspection of more than 2700 cooling installation using CFCs, an ozone depleting substance. It was concluded that more than 30% of the installation were not in a satisfactory condition and that about 20% have leakages exceeding 10% of their total coolant volume per year. In 40% of the installations, maintenance problems were identified and more than 60% of the companies inspected did not have sufficient knowledge about their installations and the handling of the CFC's. The member countries will apply the experiences from this project for the improvement of their national enforcement programs. For more information on CLEEN's initiatives, visit http://www.cleen-europe.org/index.html.

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