Floods have caused substantial economic damage in recent years in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The costs of the 2002 Elbe flood alone exceeded 10 billion Euro. Thirty experts from science and public administration gathered at the Federal Environment Agency in Berlin on 10 May 2005 to discuss the role of economic instruments for flood management and the economic assessment of flood management strategies. In his lecture, Benjamin Görlach presented some selected examples of flood management in Europe and discussed the use of economic appraisal tools in the different countries.

European Commission plans indicate that the water supply should no longer be subject to municipal self-administration, but instead to European competition rules, and maybe even to a mandatory tendering procedure. Such a development would have far-reaching effects on the German drinking water supply, which is characterised by strong communal influence.

The EC Water Framework Directive mandates that good ecological status should be reached in all water bodies in Europe by 2015. To this end, according to Article 11 of the Directive, programmes of measures shall be established for all river basins. The selection and combination of measures within these programmes should also take account of cost-effectiveness considerations. In an article for the Journal gwf Wasser / Abwasser, Benjamin Görlach, Nicole Kranz and Eduard Interwies present a possible methodology for this selection process, which was developed by Ecologic for the German Federal Environment Agency.

In his article in the "Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht," Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf (Ecologic Institute) analyzes what consequences the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe would have for environmental policy. This treaty was signed in 2004 but did not come into force as it was not ratified. The author focuses on the institutional architecture of the European Union, which would undergo some changes due to the treaty.

In this article, Camilla Bausch and Julia Rufin provide an overview of the content of the German energy law, as adopted by the German Parliament in 2005. The new energy law is based on European Directives. The authors focus their contributing article on the essential new provisions. A description of the future regulation of the energy market is provided, and the new rules concerning the unbundling of the energy sector are exposed. Furthermore, provisions that extend the requirements of European law are described.

Oberthür, Sebastian 2005: Fortentwicklung und weitere Ausgestaltung des Kyoto-Protokolls. Insbesondere Querbezüge zwischen dem System der Erfüllungskontrolle, den flexiblen Mechanismen und den Berichts- und Inventarisierungspflichten. Ecologic, Berlin.

The Austrian Water and Waste Management Association (ÖWAV) organised the ÖWAV-Forum 2005 on "Water Sector and Politics – Structures, Controls and Financing". The aim of the conference was to discuss the future of the Austrian water sector, in particular the new legal, economic and environmental regulations. R. Andreas Kraemer presented the trends at European level and their potential effects on the municipal water sector.

The printed edition of the handbook "Learning together to manage together – improving participation in water management" was published in January 2006. Ecologic actively contributed to the development of the handbook, which is one of the main outputs of the European project Harmonising Collaborative Planning (HarmoniCOP).

During the summer semester of 2005, Dr. Norbert Kopytziok is directing the course "Ecology and Design" at the College of Architecture, Media and Design of the Berlin University of the Arts. The course focuses on the debate around ecological efficiency which has entered, over the last few years, the area of ecological product construction and Eco-design.

After years of political debate, the Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005. Against this background, the fourth Climate Talk posed questions regarding what climate politics and economic effects the Kyoto Protocol in its present form will have and which (further) steps for the path to a "Carbon Constrained Economy" (Tony Blair) are necessary. Presentations were given by Dr. Hermann Ott (Head of the Wuppertal Institute Berlin Office) and by Dr. Hans-Joachim Ziesing (Senior Executive of the German Institute for Economic Research).

The Technical University Berlin hosted the conference "Water – Economic Good, Weapon, Human Right" on 9 February 2005. Ecologic Associate Britta Pielen spoke on the recent trends towards liberalisation in European water policy and the implications for the German water sector. Over the last years, the water and sanitation sector has increasingly been put under reform pressure. In particular at the European level, a political trend towards liberalising the provision of water services can be observed. These attempts are generally justified by the supposedly positive experiences with the liberalisation of other network industries, as well as with stricter environmental and quality requirements.

The study "Control of land use – nature conversation strategies, policies and instruments" is now available for download. The study analyses the legal basis and the conceptual design of nature conversation strategies, policies and instruments for reducing or managing land use in Germany. In addition, implementation deficits of these instruments are identified.

The federal bill addressing non-discriminatory network access in the energy sector will significantly reform the existing legal framework for grid operators in Germany. A crucial aspect of the reform is the strengthening of rules for vertically integrated energy companies active in production and distribution, as well as grid operation. In her publication, Dr. Camilla Bausch critically analyses and evaluates unbundling rules for the electricity sector against the background of lawmakers' objectives – including promoting competition, reducing conflict of interest cases and quelling market distorting activities.

For several years now, the European energy laws have been in a phase of transformation. Behind the much quoted catchwords liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation and re-regulation lie many more profound, often times even contradictory political, legislative and economic concepts. This is the context in which a functional Single European Market for electricity is to be established.

The National Allocation Plan (NAP) stipulates the rules for the allocation of allowances to the installations participating in emissions trading. The allowances are allocated on the basis of the actual CO2 emissions of the individual installations. To determine the quantity of emissions, data was gathered on a voluntary basis through a comprehensive data enquiry by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment. This article reports on the results of the data enquiry.