Representatives of 104 environmental citizens’ organisations (ECOs) based in 33 countries of the pPan-European region met from 14 to 16 September 2000 in Kiev, Ukraine to prepare for the next "Environment for Europe" (EfE) Ministerial Conference, in 2003. This coalition - European EcoForum - aims to promote an active and constructive role for ECOs in the preparations for Kiev-2003. We believe that our ongoing involvement in the “Environment for Europe” process has had a substantial and positive impact on the outcomes of this process.

We are still living in a world where political, military and private economic interests, leading to unsustainable consumption and production patterns, prevail over essential human interest in a clean and healthy environment and in social equity. However the right to a healthy environment is a basic human right. It is therefore an urgent task for governments to explicitly address health aspects in the further discussions and policymaking on all issues in the "Environment for Europe" process and to better co-ordinate it with the European "Environment and Health" process.

The ECOs consider the following key issues to be absolutely necessary for the Kiev-2003 Ministerial Agenda.

The Kiev Ministerial Conference should focus in open and critical manner on the implementation of the previous EfE decisions, namely the Aarhus Convention, the EAP, PEBLDS, The Guidelines on Energy Efficiency. Protocols on Heavy Metals and on Persistent Organic Pollutants and Pan-European Strategy to Phase-Out Leaded Petrol require special attention, since very little has been done yet for their implementation. We insist on direct financial flows to projects only if they are promoting or not adverse to sustainable development, human health and environment protection.

The goal of the environmental policy integration in Europe has been recognised many times, however it is going slowly, if at all. This is due to a lack of determination of governments, a lack of concrete agreed targets, timetables and indicators, and resistance from interest groups. The ECOs are also aware that since European trade and investment is becoming increasingly inter-dependent, without harmonisation across the Pan-European region, uneven policy development will encourage more trade barriers in the West, the dumping of unwanted products and waste in the East and hazardous technologies transfer to the East.

We welcome also the proposal from the Chisinau consultation for a Kiev Charter on Environmental Policy Integration. To become an effective tool it should include:

quantified targets, timetables and indicators, base the standards on protection of health, inclusion of sectoral and cross-sectoral principles and instruments into legislation, in particular the principles of prevention, precaution and extended producer responsibility. Concrete agreements on environmental liability, ecological taxation reform, reform of subsidy policies and public procurement are indispensable.

ECOs strongly support the proposed Framework Convention on Transport, Environment and Health. We call upon all governments to open negotiations on such a framework convention where we will offer our constructive collaboration. The negotiations should involve the three Ministries of all governments and should respond to the regional differences in the nature of the problem.

Governments in Kiev should sign a Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). We are determined to continue our intensive involvement in the preparations. The Protocol should oblige such assessments for plans and programmes as well as policies and legislation, on the local, national, as well as international levels.

There is an urgent need for a European agreement on environmental liability. The agreement must include minimum requirements for national environmental liability systems as well as establishing cross-boundary environmental liability systems and the types of issues that they should embrace. The agreement must cover water, nuclear issues and GMOs, so as to resolve current omissions in existing laws. Effective instruments need to be established to make sure that the money for compensation will be available in time, such as obligatory insurance and environmental liability funds. As the basis for the preparation of this agreement at the pan-European level we propose the Lugano Convention of the Council of Europe, signed in 1993 by nine West European countries but not ratified yet.

Governments should agree a phase-out strategy for nuclear energy and a time frame for implementation. Our strong demands are: no new nuclear power installations and the phase-out of existing nuclear installations; no export of nuclear waste and spent fuel into CEE and NIS countries, no export of nuclear technology.

The release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment may cause irreversible harm to the biological diversity of ecosystems as well as to animal and human health. Given our limited knowledge about the nature of the risks involved, we call on governments to introduce a five-year freeze on GMO commercialisation, to allow time to enable more monitoring to be undertaken.

We demand a precautionary principle to the regulation of chemicals. Given the international character of chemical pollution there is a need to harmonise, at least on the European level and at a high level, national chemical policies. A European Chemicals Strategy should include a full right to know, a deadline by which all chemicals on the market must have had their safety independently assessed, a phase-out of persistent or bioaccumulative chemicals, a ban on the transfer of hazardous chemicals and production facilities, a ban on chemical weapons production and storage. Governments should clearly commit themselves in Kiev to implement this strategy including the responsibility for special funds allocation.

Environmental education is an essential precondition for public awareness, a change of consumption patterns, and a responsible and active attitude of people in their relationship with nature. Education should put the environment into the broader social context of sustainable development. We support the proposal of the Ukraine Government to start preparing a Charter on Environmental Education to be adopted in Kiev. The scope of the Charter should extend beyond schools and the general public, and should include ‘life-long learning’ for all of society. Specific education and training is required for civil servants outside the environmental authorities as well as in the agriculture and business sectors and the media.

While the ten-year review of the Rio process ("Rio+10") will take place in the year 2002, we would like assurance that the Kiev agenda is complementary to the Rio+10 preparation. We call upon the governments to include poverty eradication and human environmental rights, while discussing European environmental problems and development policies. As Europe has a special responsibility for the globalisation of the economy, the negative consequences should be addressed. The militarisation of some societies and the consequences for civil society and environment should also be addressed. We call for support to the process of realising an Earth Charter at the Rio+10 Conference. We call upon governments to allocate resources for ECO involvement in both the Rio+10 and the EfE processes.

The European Eco-Forum calls upon governments to facilitate the involvement of ECOs, in particular in the following ways:

• By guaranteeing open, transparent and accessible process. In the preparations for the previous conferences, the involvement of ECOs was increasingly accepted. We call upon governments to continue with this upward line. In particular we call for an observer position in the Executive Committee of the Working Group of Senior Officials, the systematic inclusion of ECOs in the preparatory work,the prevention of any no formal or informal working sessions that are not open to ECOs, and the continuation of this policy at the Kiev conference itself.
• By inviting ECOs on the national level into ongoing consultation processes in preparation for the Kiev conference.
• By involving ECOs in national delegations involved in the preparatory processes and the conference, and organise this in such a way that the delegates have a real advisory role to play.
• Providing the financial means and other facilities to raise public awareness, to involve an ever-growing part of the environmental movement, to work across national borders and to continue with building pan-European links that increaseing opportunities forto mutual learning.