The Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) requests the contracting parties to promote environmental education and environmental awareness among the public, especially on how to obtain access to information, to participate in decision-making and to obtain access to justice in environmental matters. The new European Directive on Public Access to Environmental Information implementing the Convention on a European level contains a similar provision. The objective of the project is to inform the German citizens about their rights under the Convention by means of a brochure in order to enable them to perform these rights.

The EC increasingly participates in international conferences and mixed international agreements alongside its Member States. The appearance of both EC and Member States raises questions of competences for the negotiation, conclusion and implementation of such international instruments. In particular in the field of marine environment, substantial progress is hindered by an opaque division of competences between the EC and its Member States and lack of coordination. Accordingly, the German Federal Environmental Agency commissioned Ecologic with the task of analysing the division of external competences between the EC and its Member States taking into account the OSPAR-Convention.

The workshop aims at continuing and intensifying the process of an international exchange of experiences with the on-going activities which was started by a workshop in September 2001 in Bruges. It will focus on the exchange of information regarding experiences in the field of air pollution abatement measures - both their planning (drawing up action plans according to art. 7 (3) and preparation of plans or programmes according to art. 8 (3) of the Framework Directive) and their implementation. The workshop will serve as a forum for exchanging experiences on the national implementation of the EU air quality directives with emphasis on air pollution abatement measures.

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 Environment to analyse the legal framework for implementing the directive in Germany and also to draft the implementing legislation.

The Working Group on "Emissions Trading as a Means to Combat the Impacts of Greenhouse Gases" has been created according to the German Federal Government's Climate Protection Programme of 18 October 2000. Its aim is to evaluate the possibilities of establishing a national emissions trading system, which takes into account existing national instruments, the European concept of emission trading as well as the Climate Framework Convention and the Kyoto-Protocol.

Ecologic experts on private sector participation and regulatory oversight in the water sector contribute to the OECD publications "Social Issues in the Provision and Pricing of Water Services" and "Improving Water Management: Recent OECD Experience". The final report and an excerpt of the publication are available for download.

The project discusses methods and estimates of the costs and benefits of groundwater protection. Ecologic contributed an extensive survey of the existing literature in the field, as well as EU Member States' experience with the use of economical methods and instruments in groundwater protection. The project supported the drafting process for the EC groundwater daughter directive.

The report "Global Review of Economic Instruments for Water Management in Latin America" provides practical examples of experience with economic instruments in water management, mainly in European and other OECD countries. It assists in identifying appropriate instruments for the Latin American context and demonstrates the constraints and impediments to their introduction.

Ecologic analyses, within the framework of this project, the institutional interactions between international treaty systems and European environmental instruments. Although they are negotiated separately, they affect each other's performance and effectiveness. Such 'institutional interaction' will inevitably cause conflicts if regulatory approaches are incompatible. If approaches are mutually reinforcing, however, it may also create synergies. If not addressed properly, inter-institutional conflicts can inhibit and counteract the effectiveness of international environmental co-operation.

This project aimed at specifying the first draft of the German guidance document for the economic analysis according to the EU Water Framework Directive. The revision process was based on the analysis of the WATECO Guidance Document as well as on experience gained through the Middle Rhine and Lippe pilot projects. On 15 January 2003, the revised version of the German Guidance Document was discussed and presented to the interested public.

On 23rd October 2001 the European Commission presented the proposal for a directive establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community. The proposal plans a collective European approach to trading with emission allowances, which should come into effect by 2005. The objective of this workshop, that took place one year after the publication of the proposal, was to gain an overall view of the discussion process and to draw up a first summary.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to protect the global climate is an incomplete agreement. Many of its provisions require a further specification in order to make the Protocol ratifiable for countries. In this project, concrete options and proposals for the elaboration of the Kyoto Protocol were developed for the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

The "EU Common Forum on Contaminated Land" was initiated in 1994 and provides a discussion forum for experts from all EU Member States and Accession Countries. Main topics are the develoment of strategies for the treatment of contaminated sites and for land recycling. Key aspects of the 9th meeting of the Forum in November 2002 at Berlin are the Groundwater Directive, Environmental Liability, Soil Policy, Sustainable Landuse, the 6th RTD Framework Program and two EU research projects (EUGRIS, METROPOLIS).