For the preparations of the informal Council of Environmental Ministers under the Austrian EU presidency, Ecologic contributed to a discussion paper on the urban environment and environmental technologies. The paper discusses in particular the Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment of the European Commission and the potential for the use of environmental technologies in cities.

The new Member States' thorough preparation for the accession to the European Union is a precondition for an effective enlargement of the EU. Therefore, not only the national level but also the regional and local level should be placed in the centre of attention, in order to implement European legislation. The aim of the two projects "Capacity Building in Latvia and Lithuania" is to prepare regional and local environmental administration in Latvia and Lithuania for their EU-accession.

In cooperation with the European SUSTRA-Network Ecologic analyses the relationship between trade, environment and sustainable development. As a part of the project, Ecologic convened an international workshop on the architecture of global governance of trade and sustainable development which focussed on the global institutional set-up, the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO rules as well as the role of non-State actors in the international fora. The results of the workshop were summarised and published in a policy brief.

In order to implement its obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as required under the Kyoto Protocol, the European Community elaborated a directive establishing a community-wide greenhouse gas trading system. Ecologic has been commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environmemnt to analyse the legal framework for implementing the directive in Germany and also to draft the implementing legislation. In addition Ecologic develops provisions for the implementation of the flexible Mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol.

Policy makers increasingly need accurate and timely information to meet reporting requirements linked to environmental legislation and decision making. This project explored the extent to which Earth Observation (EO) services can help meet the special reporting requirements of two important European Union (EU) environmental policy areas, namely the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Soil Protection Initiative (SPI).

In the framework of the EC funded Programme "Raising the awareness of trade issues in civil society", Ecologic is organising a one-day seminar in Budapest, Hungary. The aim of the seminar is to provide participants from civil society with a better understanding of the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO rules, to raise awareness on how better to participate in and influence European trade policy and to contribute to a closer co-operation and networking among civil society groups in Hungary. The Seminar languages will be English and Hungarian.

As part of the implementation of the IPPC Directive the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for waste treatment, industries are being identified and described in the BAT REFerence document (BREF) "waste treatment industries". Ecologic is compiling the best available techniques of selected waste treatment facilities relevant to Germany.

In order to comply with the European directive on emissions trading  the Member States have to establish so-called national allocation plans within a very short time frame which state the total number of allowances to be allocated and the rules of allocation. To establish such a plan in Germany, it is necessary to conduct an extensive data collection in order to understand the emissions of each installation which is covered by the directive.

How democratic is Europe? Is it getting worse? Is it getting better? Should we care? Do we care? The European Public Space Observatory project (EUROPUB) will assemble information that allows the monitoring of European democracy in the 21st century in the context of the emerging institutional constellations and socio-political practices of the European Union and the process of European integration.

This project deals with the reporting obligation of the European Community and the Member States under the EC greenhouse gas emissions monitoring mechanism. Ecologic also contributed to a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Land consumption in Germany, which is caused mainly by the construction of transportation infrastructure and new housing projects, currently stands at the alarmingly high rate of 130 ha a day. Funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and in cooperation with the Leipniz Institute for Ecological and Regional Development (IÖR), Ecologic is analyzing the contribution of nature protection policy to reducing and managing the demand for land use in Germany. At the centre of this research lie the instruments of nature conservation policy, such as the creation of protected areas, the European Flora and Fauna Directive, Environmental Impact Assessment and landscape planning.

Ecologic completed a report reviewing and evaluating practices of public participation in water management in the Havel river basin for the implementation of the EU's Water Framework Directive (WFD). Project results were presented by Nicole Kranz at the TU Berlin workshop on 'Public involvement in river basin management' on 9/10 February 2004. The project report is available for download.

The Water Framework Directive requires the establishment of programs of measures for river basins until 2009 in order to reach the set quality targets for water bodies. In this selection process, the consideration of cost-efficiency criteria is mandated. The German study/handbook prepared by Ecologic in collaboration with the Institute of Water Resources Research and Management at the University of Kassel establishes guidelines for this selection process. The handbook has been published in English and German.

What are the impacts of European infringement procedures regarding the non-compliance with nature conservation legislation? To what extent are infringement procedures capable of enforcing the implementation of this legislation? And, on the other hand, to what extent can protected areas contribute to fulfill the requirements of the nature conservation legislation by means of sustainable management with appropriate financing? In order to discuss these issues an international conference entitled "Applying EU Environmental Legislation in the Field of Marine and Coastal Protection" took place on the Ionian Island of Zakynthos on May 19th and 20th, 2003. The preparation and organisation was carried out by Ecologic in co-operation with the National Marine Park of Zakynthos.

Within a project by the Cologne Center for Public Finance (FiFo), Ecologic presented the state of the art of fiscal policy instruments for climate protection in the areas of transport and private households. The report is part of the project "Ökologische Finanzreform – Weiterentwicklung der Ökologischen Steuerreform unter Klima- und Energieaspekten" ("Environmental Fiscal Reform – further development of the Environmental Tax Reform from climate and energy points of view"; FKZ 202 14 195) in behalf of the German Federal Environmental Agency.