38th EPA Network plenary, Bucharest

Barna Tánczos, Minister of Environment, Water and Forests in Romania and Lóránd Fülöp, President/State Secretary of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) welcomed participants to the 38^th plenary of the Heads of European Environmental Protection Agencies’ Network (EPA Network) in Bucharest. Around 45 participants representing around 20 European countries were gathered at the meeting.

Diane Simiu, deputy to the General Commissioner for sustainable development at the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion in France opened the session on European policy processes and the role of EPAs. Heads of EPAs address questions and reflections in an open discussion with Deputy Director-General Patrick Child of DG ENV in the European Commission and Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the EEA. Both speakers provided updates on policies and activities relevant to Heads of EPAs.

Yevhenii Fedorenko, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources presented to Heads of EPAs in the session on War in Ukraine and Energy crisis – impacts on EPAs how the war, having caused thousands of deaths as well as major economic consequences, is also impacting Ukraine’s environment. Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the EEA chaired the session, where Miroslav Havranek, Director of CENIA, presented reflections on how the environment in the region is affected while at the same time dealing with consequences from electricity price surges. Mihai Tomescu, Energy and Environment Expert at EEA presented implications from the war and energy crisis on the “Fit for 55” file and the progress towards European climate mitigation and energy targets. Diane Simu, deputy to the General Commissioner for sustainable development at the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, presented the recent French national plan for 'sobriété énergétique' (energy sobriety) aiming for a 10 percent cut in energy consumption across France. Michal Maco, General Director of the Slovak Environment Agency, presented the work in Slovakia on renovating buildings to reduce energy consumption and consequently air pollutants from heating. A discussion among Heads of EPAs followed.

Lóránd Fülöp, President/State Secretary of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) opened session 4, where Mari Erlandsen, EPA Network Secretariat, first introduced an overview of network priorities since the last meeting. Eeva Primmer, Research Director of the Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE, presented Heads of EPAs with a proposal of forming a new Interest group on a European Platform for Actionable Knowledge and Solutions for Sustainable Development (EPAS), emphasising the competencies that EPAs have on systemic sustainability challenges, their experience in operating in a multilevel context with several actors/stakeholders and their knowledge around the need for (actionable) solutions for the future. Dirk Messner, President at the German Environment Agency presented recent work in the Ad hoc EPA Network group on Zero Pollution. Urs Walker, co-chair of the Interest group on Noise from FOEN Switzerland, presented proposals for the plenary to endorse their technical report on quiet areas, take note of their progress report of the last five years, and agree on a third mandate for the group in the next five years. Stefania Minestrini, ISPRA, presented work from the Interest group on Environment and Tourism, including their position paper and information paper on European Sustainable Tourism submitted to the 9^th Ministerial conference on environment for Europe 5-7 October for the side event titled “European Sustainable Tourism and Circular Economy: Shifting Tourisms towards Circular Economy Models”.

Luc Bas, Head of Programme Coordination, Networks and Strategy at EEA opened session 5 titled Governance of EPAs: Roles, responsibilities and structures. Lóránd Fülöp, President/State Secretary of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) introduced the environmental governance model of Romania. Maria Siclari, President of ISPRA, presented the Italian system for environmental protection (SNPA), and Dirk Messner, President at the German Environment Agency presented the strategic cooperation between the German Environment Agency and the German Nature Conservation Agency. Heads of EPAs then had an exchange around strengths and challenges with the different national governance models for environment protection in Europe.

Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the EEA, opened session 6 on Digitalisation of EPAs, where Lóránd Fülöp, President/State Secretary of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) introduced recent digitalization projects in ANPM. Stefan Jensen, Expert at EEA, presented the EEA/EPA Network initiative on Digitalisation, which explores how EPAs are using Digitalisation to enhance sustainability solutions, followed by discussion in the plenary.

In the closing session, Heads of EPAs discussed important future issues for their next meetings. The 39^th EPA Network plenary will be hosted by the EEA, and will take place in Brussels in March 2023. Offers from SYKE to host 40^th EPA Network plenary was reiterated and the Slovak EPA kindly invited the network to Slovakia for the 41^st EPA Network plenary in spring 2024.