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COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 14

By Joop | September 7, 2006

Dear All,
I do hope that you all have had nice holidays. Meanwhile some decisions were made concerning the next meeting in Bilbao and the COMMON FORUM website has gone “public”:
see http://www.commonforum.eu

1] COMMON FORUM MEETING IN BILBAO 2 & 3 NOVEMBER 2006
As always I have to disappoint some COMMON FORUM members and guests who prefered to meet in October. The majority of respondents to my previous mail were in favour of 2 and 3 November. The agenda will ( most likely) cover the following subjects:

a] Contaminated land remediation funding and EU guidelines concerning state aid
This will be the topic of the in-depth group discussion on the afternoon of 2 November. There are some offers for small presentations on national experiences with state aid, but most COMMON FORUM members asked for a keynote presentation by an expert from the EU commission. I will try to invite someone from DG competition to give a presentation on recent EU views concerning state aid and contaminated land remediation funding.

b] The soil framework directive (if it is published before the meeting)
If the soil strategy and the framework directive are published before the meeting we should devote some time to discuss these. I do hope to have some news about this sometime before the meeting in view of the planning of the agenda. If not we should accept a flexible agenda to cope with last minute developments.

c] News about national policy developments
Some members asked to organize a tour de table session with very limited speaking time for each. I will send some ideas for a focussed approach together with the final agenda for the meeting

d] Developments in EU research and projects related to COMMON FORUM , including the exploratory study on expertise centers in the field of urban soil ecosystems discussed in Budapest

e] Next meeting ( most probably in Germany)

2] COMMON FORUM WEBSITE
When clicking the link in this mail you will be directed to the website by your webbrowser. Do not expect a spectacular fancy website. The purpose is to inform you and not to impress you.
The main contents are the COMMON FORUM NEWS mails, some info about COMMON FORUM including the mission statement, a list with members and guests and some links to websites important for our work

3] COMMON FORUM SECRETARIAT
Please note that I will be travelling from monday 11 september till sunday 24 september. I will check my emails and reply to urgent ones in this period, and will attend the kick off meeting of the RISKBASE coordination action in Barcelona on 20 &21 september.

Best regards,
Joop

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