Public Participation in CEE: Pitfalls and Challenges Capacity Building in Implementation of the Environmental Acquis at the Local and Regional Level Multi Country Workshop, Prague 7-9 June 2004 Jiri Dusik REC Environmental Assessment Team jiri.dusik@rec.org

Presentation outline Changing management of EIA process Notifying “publics” Feedback mechanism Account of comments Will capacity building help? Going beyond procedure - concerns around valuation and analysis of impacts Observations raised within Sofia EIA Initiative and REC Public Participation programme.

Changing management of EIA process Public scoping “ regarded too advanced tool” in 1990s Increased use internal scoping process through expanding two EIA tier-systems transposition of the EC EIA directive Public scoping unfortunately not feasible too many EIAs - administration lacks capacity only if required by international legal instrument (amendments to Aarhus Conv. or EC EIA Directive)

Notifying “publics” Extensive definitions of “public” and “public concerned” by Aarhus Conv. and Directive 2003/35/EC To be notified individually or by public notice Effective notification often difficult Three means sometimes required – local notice boards, www sites (central registers) and at least one locally appropriate means determined by respective municipality Individual notification – “please forward this notice to anyone who may be interested”

Feedback mechanism Public hearing - often legally required - perfect tool to expose conflicts (their original objective) Move towards more collaborative means – workshops, etc. Simple rules: Seating arrangement DO matter Cut hearing into logically separate blocks, each followed by discussion Enable limited questioning back

Account of comments discriminative treatment of comments by authorities and public concerned – reflects traditional administrative processes will be limited by new access to justice provisions (Aarhus Conv. + 2003/35/EC - Art. 10a,b) Simple rules for non-discriminative treatment of comments: Annex all comments, give them number (1,2,3) and highlight and code number key substantive arguments Cluster similar substantive arguments into categories (A, B, C,) Respond to these arguments category by category

Will capacity building help? No …. but can stimulate incremental reforms: Official guidelines (rules of notification, public feedback mechanisms and treatment of comments) More emphasis on PP in accreditation systems (for EA experts and within professional training of public administration) Position papers (benefits of public participation) Annual conference (like IAIA) to benchmark good practice PP Awards

Concerns around valuation and analysis of impacts Evaluating importance of impact – are simple system of determining regional importance (local, regional, national, int.l) more effective the sophisticated valuation techniques (aggregate social importance, willingness to pay, etc.)? Multicriteria analysis - is it helpful to shrink logical discussion about impacts into irrational discourse on numbers? Social and economic impacts – usually most important to population - should EIA/IPPC help to properly analyze them?