On behalf of the European Environment Agency (EEA), Ecologic and Stefan Speck jointly support two projects on the 'Analysis of national waste policies being implemented in the context of landfill and incineration directives' and on the 'use of economic instruments in policies addressing resource use'. Both of these projects build on precursor studies by the EEA which have assessed ex-post the effectiveness of waste water policies and the effectiveness of packaging waste management systems. Ecologic and Stefan Speck will contribute advice in the area of economic instruments and ex-post cost effectiveness methodologies. This project is conducted under the framework contract on European Environmental Economic Activities (3EA).

Along with the emphasis on better regulation and lean governance in the European Union and its Member States, there has been renewed interest in policy evaluation and impact assessment. One of the main criteria in this context is cost-effectiveness, which demonstrates that environmental objectives have been achieved – or will be achieved – at least cost. At the EASY-ECO conference "Impact Assessment for a New Europe and Beyond", Benjamin Görlach was invited to present some insights on state of the art ex-post assessments of the cost-effectiveness of environmental policies.

With the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the European Union aims to redefine the relationships between itself and the new neighbours it acquired in the EU Enlargement of 2004. Economic integration remains at the heart of the ENP, but increased co-operation in the areas of environmental and energy policy is addressed as well. This Ecologic Newsletter by Sascha Müller-Kraenner examines this important issue and also surveys questions that the EU and its new neighbours will need to address together.

The EU and Member States' sustainable development strategies were largely developed in isolation and at different times. They consequently vary considerably in terms of their content and their approach. The objective of this project is to develop a handbook of guidance for conducting reviews and peer reviews of national sustainable development strategies in the EU. This involves designing a template, method and core specifications for reviews, so that a similar approach can be taken towards different national sustainable development strategies. The handbook has been published and can be downloaded.

Since 1999, the European Commission has been undertaking a series of Sustainable Impact Assessments (SIAs) of multilateral and regional trade agreements. On invitation, Markus Knigge presented at the EASY-ECO conference, organised by the Impact Assessment Research Centre in the University of Manchester's School of Environment and Development, a paper on the role of civil society engagement in these assessments. The presentation focused on the objectives of stakeholder consultations, methodologies for participation, the interplay with the negotiation process and the impediments for effective participation of civil society.

Export Credit Agencies like the German EulerHermes AG have often been criticized for their restrictive information disclosure and the lack of participation. Through the recently agreed OECD Common Approaches, a trend towards better and earlier information disclosure has been established; however, the actual implementation of this agreement remains to be seen. Benjamin Görlach presented recent developments in a workshop organised by the non-governmental organisation World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED).

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.

The United Kingdom put Africa and the Millennium Development Goals high on its agenda for its presidency of the G8 in 2005. In a discussion with Camilla Toulmin - Director of the Institute for International Environment and Development - the impacts of this initiative, its potential and possible implementation challenges were spelled out and debated. The Dinner Dialogue took place in Berlin on 6 June 2005.

As the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from 2008 to 2012 is drawing near, it is becoming evident that some countries will face major difficulties in fulfilling their commitments under the EU Burden Sharing Agreement, while other countries are already close to achieving their targets. What is the motivation of countries that carry out an effective climate policy, and how do countries that are far away from achieving their reduction targets justify their behaviour? In her essay on European climate policy, Helen Lückge looks at these questions from an economic point of view.

This project aims to identify options for applying the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) in EU environmental policy. In recent years the OMC has emerged as an increasingly important instrument of EU governance. Rather than relying on legally binding rules, the OMC works through the diffusion and evaluation of information.

The compliance cost that environmental regulation imposes on businesses plays a central role in the debate on economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability. However, on closer inspection these costs often turn out to be lower than originally anticipated. As part of a a European consortium, Ecologic reviewed ex-post analyses of the costs imposed on business because of European environmental legislation, and compared these to ex-ante estimates. The project reports conclude that some ex-ante overestimation is inevitable, and that the new EU regulatory flexibility could make accurate predictions even more difficult. But it nevertheless proposes a series of ways in which accuracy could be improved.

As the impacts of climate change are beginning to become visible, there is growing concern about the possible costs of inaction. However, before adequate assessments of the costs of climate change impacts can be made, there are various methodological questions to consider. As part of Ecologic’s framework contract with the EEA on environmental-economic activities, FEEM, IVM and Ecologic perform a review of studies on the costs of climate change impacts and give methodological recommendations for future evaluations.

Ecologic has been commissioned by the Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research (SNIFFER) to develop practicable proposals for implementing the economic aspects of the Water Framework Directive in Scotland and Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on the possible role of economic valuation studies. The now available study deals mainly with the assessment of disproportionate costs (linked to the Art. 4 exemptions), while also addressing the selection of measures (Art. 11). It recommends a staged and flexible approach, which takes account of the specific conditions in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The project objective is to provide expert policy advice to the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the field of international climate policy. The topic areas of Ecologic are the institutional design and organisation of the international negotiation process in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, as well as the further elaboration of the compliance system of the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore the project analyse various questions relating to the future development of the international climate change regime beyond the year 2012.