Archive for January, 2006

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 7

Friday, January 27th, 2006

Dear All,

It is time to start thinking about COMMON FORUM activities for 2006. Especially after the big news that the so called Interservice consultation (internal discussion between the services of the commission) about the EU soil strategy and proposed soil framework directive has started. COMMON FORUM has been quite active in 2005, with a full meeting in Vienna, shorter meetings during the CONSOIL conference and the NICOLE workshop in Cagliari (Sardinia) and contributions to NICOLE (stockholm, June), the International committee on Contaminated Land ( former ad hoc group, Paris September), the CONSOIL conference (Bordeaux, October) and the NICOLE workshop (Cagliari, December). I will prepare an (annual) report which summarizes the results of these activities and will outline some plans for 2006.
In this newsletter you will find some info about the EU soil strategy and a summary of the decisions made at the small COMMON FORUM meetings at CONSOIL and the latest NICOLE workshop.

1] EU SOIL STRATEGY
Commissioner Dimas approved to start the consultation without any modifications of the plans. This means that the discussion during the interservice consultation will be about the plans as has been presented many times to most of us by representatives of the soil team from DGENV. The consultation will end on 3 februari. It is expected that the policy package will not be discussed ( and approved) by the Commission before 29 March. So the most optimistic scenario for publication is April 2006. The next step (after publication of the final proposal by the commission) will involve four “players”:
- the European Council (of national ministers of Env.),
- the European Parliament,
- the Committee of the Regions (ECR) (www.cor.eu.int/)
- the EESC- The European Economic and Social Committee (www.esc.eu.int/).

The rapporteurs are:
For EU parliament:
Vittorio Prodi (Italian,Liberal) concerning the communication about the soil strategy
Ms. Gutierez-Cortinez (Spanish, christian democrat) concerning the framework directive
For ECR:
Cor Lamers ( Dutch, Mayor of a small city called Houten)
For ESSC:
Staffan Nilsson (Swedish, Swedish farmers union).

Finally it is noted that Luca Marmo has joined the “soil team” at DG ENV, replacing Berhard Berger.

2] DECISIONS MADE IN THE COMMON FORUM MEETING AT CONSOIL

a] Financial situation concerning the funding of the secretariaat
To justify your financial contributions the performance of the COMMON FORUM secretariat will be evaluated each year, on the basis of an annual progress report from the secretariat. This evaluation will be the responsibility of the main contract holder and the COMMON FORUM members from countries that contributed financially to the project. Moreover COMMON FORUM members from countries offering the full contribution for three years will be members of the agenda committee. The agenda committee will assist the secretariat in drafting meeting agenda’s and provide guidance in other activities of the secretariat.

b] COMMON FORUM membership and guests
Contaminated land policy makers from EU memberstate ministries and policy advisors from national agencies are members of COMMON FORUM. Representatives from EU services, other visiting experts and representatives from other European networks are special guests of the COMMON FORUM network, and are of utmost importance for the functioning of COMMON FORUM.

c] Plans for COMMON FORUM activities
A number of suggestions have been discussed. Contaminated land issues related to the soil framework directive (contaminated land inventory, list of polluting activities, land status report, remediation plan and financing orphan site remediation) and the groundwater directive should be given a high priority. The transfer of know-how was also considered to be an important issue for COMMON FORUM.

d] Next COMMON FORUM meeting
The most appropriate time and place for a full 2 days COMMON FORUM meeting would be spring 2006 in Budapest.

e] Other business
The COMMON FORUM delegates stressed the importance of informal discussions about soil policy development and implementation between the EC and EU memberstate representatives at a strategic policy level. The Vital Soil meeting in The Hague (2004) has been a good starting point. UK organized a meeting with similar goals during its EU presidency ( October 2005). We need to assure some continuity. Hopefully an event can be organised during the Austrian presidency.

3] DECISIONS MADE IN THE COMMON FORUM MEETING AT THE NICOLE CAGLIARI WORKSHOP

a] COMMON FORUM and EUGRIS.
We decided that the basic needs as proposed by Paul Bardos would be more than adequate. We felt that it is far more important to provide EUGRIS with content of general interest, not necessarily related to COMMON FORUM. The basic needs are:
A short description of COMMON FORUM
A list of members (who is who)
A library for documents (like CARACAS and CLARINET documents)
A “what’s new “ space for upcoming COMMON FORUM events

COMMON FORUM sees no added value of sharing webspace specifically with NICOLE. Information of interest for COMMON FORUM and NICOLE is of general interest for contaminated land management and should be presented a such. We also do not see a role in peer reviewing or approving information. EUGRIS should create it’s own editorial board. COMMON FORUM is of course aware of the problems in creating a web-based intelligent information base concerning soil and groundwater, but the best way to support it is to offer content, even in non english languages ( with english short summary). For real interesting information translations are likely to appear anyway. The discussion about the best way to promote and support EUGRIS will continue at the next meeting. See also the attached EUGRIS-update.doc [EUGRIS-update.doc]
b] Programme for the next COMMON FORUM meeting
The next meeting is planned in spring 2006 in Budapest. The format of the meeting can be the same as in Vienna 2005:
A meeting programme for 1,5 day, with discussion in groups on the afternoon of the first day. It is obvious that the major part of the meeting will be devoted to the EU soil policy package, which should be published by then.

4] OTHER NEWS
A new EU project about risk based management at the river basin scale has been selected for starting contract negotiations ( it got 28,5 of the maximum of 30 points). The project is a coordinating action, which means that results from other projects can be discussed, integrated and coordinated. This is in fact the best follow-up of aquaterra (environmental system analysis at river basin scale) we could get. Most experts in the field agree that it is a bit too early for the big jump forwards from the first aquaterra results towards a proposal for an integrated project concerning fully-fledged management at the river basin scale. A coordinating action is the right tool at this moment. Readers of this news may have noticed that I am quite enthousiastic about this project. The reason is that I am participating in this project as an independent expert. This means that a good link with COMMON FORUM is assured without committing COMMON FORUM to the results and conclusion of the project beforehand. A document describing the proposal is attached [RISKBASE_PartB.pdf]
The next NICOLE workshop will take place in Carcassone 11 and 12 May2006 with the title: “In situ measuring
and monitoring: innovations and practical experience for a cost efficient approach: A different approach for soil and groundwater investigations”. Please consult the NICOLE website (www.nicole.org) for further info.

5] SHORT SECRETARIAT HOLIDAY
I will be away and not replying to email till 7/02/2006.

Best regards,
Joop Vegter