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COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 35 Agenda for CF Meeting in Rotterdam 28 & 29 februari 2008 and secretary report

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

1] COMMON FORUM MEETING AGENDA
Please find the Agenda and additional information for the meeting in Rotterdam (CFagenda Rotterdam.doc) and a report about the activities of the secretariat from 2005 till 2008 (CF secretariat report 2005-2008.doc) attached. The latter report aims to justify the financial contributions to the secretariat budget and will serve as a starting point for the discussion about the next secretariat.

2] COMMON FORUM MEETING LOCATION:
The meeting will take place at the Bilderberg Parkhotel Rotterdam, 15 minutes walk from Rotterdam Central station. See hotel website <http://www.hotels.nl/rotterdam/parkhotel/> for more information and maps.
The VROM Ministry made a pre-reservation for rooms at this hotel for 27 and 28 februari. Roomrates are € 162,50 including breakfast.
PLEASE NOTIFY Margot Meier by email : <Margot.Meijer@minvrom.nl> if you want to book a room at this hotel with a discount of 12%.(if this is still possible after 31 January). There are lower costs hotels in the neighbourhood. Other options close to the meeting place are:

Hilton Rotterdam, Address: Weena 10, € 84,- incl. breakfast.
Hotel One, Address: Westersingel 1, € 89,- incl. breakfast,
Hotel Van Walsum, Address: Mathenersserlaan 199-201, € 90 without breakfast.

If you have further questions please send a mail to Margot Meijer <Margot.Meijer@minvrom.nl>

TRAVEL to ROTTERDAM
I you arrive at Schiphol airport there is a direct train every 30 minutes which calls at Rotterdam CS (central station).
Rotterdam CS can be reached from Paris by Thalys TGV and from Brussels by normal trains ( every hour) as well.
For some of you it would be possible to fly directly to Rotterdam airport. Take bus 33 and reach Rotterdam Central Station in 26 minutes

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 34 Meeting in Rotterdam 28 & 29 februari 2008

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

Dear All,

Our next meeting will be held in Rotterdam on Thursday 28 and Friday 29 February 2008. Please read the general info about the meeting and the preliminary agenda below. Attached to this message is a copy of EUGRIS news -eugris-2007-12-21.doc, for your information

COMMON FORUM MEETING LOCATION:
The meeting will take place at the Bilderberg Parkhotel Rotterdam, 15 minutes walk from Rotterdam Central station. See hotel website <http://www.hotels.nl/rotterdam/parkhotel/> for more information and maps.
The VROM Ministry made a pre-reservation for rooms at this hotel for 27 and 28 februari. Roomrates are € 162,50 including breakfast.
PLEASE NOTIFY Margot Meier BEFORE 31 JANUARY by email : <Margot.Meijer@minvrom.nl> if you want to book a room at this hotel. There are lower costs hotels in the neighbourhood. Other options close to the meeting place are:

If you have further questions please send a mail to Margot Meijer <Margot.Meijer@minvrom.nl>

MEETING PROGRAMME

Wednesday 27 Februari:
17.30: Get together ( drinks and snacks) in Bilderberg Parkhotel. Some dinnersuggestions will be provided.

Thurday 28 Februari:
10.00 COMMON FORUM meeting in Bilderberg Parkhotel.
16.30 Field trip
19.00 Drinks and snacks on the EUROMAST tower
20.00 till 22.00 Buffet dinner at the EUROMAST

Friday 29 Februari
9.00 COMMON FORUM meeting in Bilderberg Parkhotel.
15.00 End of meeting

THE AGENDA OF THE COMMON FORUM MEETING
The agenda will cover 4 main topics:
A] The renewing and strengthening of cooperation between EU memberstates concerning contaminated land ( including groundwater)
We will invite speakers from some EU countries to present their national approaches for contaminated land and to present the main issues where their national policy could benefit from international exchange of experiences. We will focus on those countries that do not regularly attend our meetings, mostly for financial reasons. The Dutch ministry has reserved some budget for this meeting to pay travel and hotel costs for these invited countries. The conclusions from these presentations will be used in group discussions on how to continue COMMON FORUM more effectively concerning mutual support of national policies in EU memberstates.

B] Ideas on regional approaches for contaminated groundwater resulting from clusters of contaminated sites.
This theme wlil consist of presentations and a field trip in Rotterdam

C] EU policy: The soil framework directive and developments concerning IPPC directive

D] The continuation of the COMMON FORUM secretariat
A report about the COMMON FORUM secretariat and the activities of COMMON FORUM from 2005 till 2008) will be sent to you before the meeting

The agenda will be approximately scheduled approximately as follows:

Day one:
10:00 Opening and general matters
-three 20 min presentations concerning national policies
Coffee/tea break : 11:30- 12:00
-three 20 min. presentations concerning national policies
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:00 Group discussions
Coffee/tea break : 14:00-15:30
15:30- 16: 00 New policy approaches for groundwater contamination
16:30 Introduction to field trip and departure to field trip ( drinks and dinner will be “integrated” in the field trip)

Day 2
9:00: Review of the results of the discussion on day one, plenary discussion
9:30 Soil framework directive, current situation and need for further COMMON FORUM initiatives
Coffee/tea break : 10:30- 11:00
11:00- 12:00 Continuation of SFD discussion or about other issues and concerns like IPPC
Lunch 12:00-13:00
13:00 - 14: 00 discussion about the continuation of the COMMON FORUM secretariat, including financial aspects.
14:00 -15:00 Any other business (next meetings, next topics, research news)

Best regards,
Joop

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 33

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Dear All,
Last Monday I receiced the message that one of our members from the Basque country, Arantzazu Urzelai, died on Sunday 30 November. This came as a big shock to me, knowing Arantzazu for a long time during which we became good friends . Arantzazu was a very nice person and a talented colleague in the contaminated land community. In the early ‘90 she made important contributions to the development of contaminated land policy in the Basque country and was the leader of the soil guidelines working group in the CARACAS concerted action. The photos attached may help you to remember her and the happier times when we worked together in CARACAS (Arantzazu is standing first row right on the group photo from a CARACAS meeting in Bilbao) and in COMMON FORUM

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 32 COMMON FORUM meeting in the Netherlands 28&29 februari 2008

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

Dear All,
1] COMMON FORUM meeting
From the replies I got the best dates to meet are the 4e week of February: Thursday 28 and Friday 29.
I will inform you about the agenda later. If you have ideas for the agenda please do not hesitate to mail these to me.

2] EUGRIS NEWS
The EUGRIS team sent us the following information:

EUGRIS has nearly 3,000 resources. Resources are links to

* documents (reports, journal articles guidance, books etc)
* glossaries
* information web sites
* software
* hardware

The resources are a large part of the EUGRIS library and you can search them by origin and topic at:
http://www.eugris.info/library.asp

You can search them for specific text at:
http://www.eugris.info/search/search.asp
For example you could look for all resources that relate to radio-nuclide contamination by searching for radio*. Note the use of the wildcard.
So the text search can help you drill down to information that may not (yet) have a specific EUGRIS topic, or things by a particular author etc.
All of the resource postings on EUGRIS can be associated with projects, organisations and authors. If you find a resource that interests you, you can follow the link back to the projects, organisations and authors etc to see if they have anything else you might like.
These functionalities are very useful, and we have more developments in EUGRIS which will make them yet more powerful in the future.
Following are links to some of our new additions and additions made during the Summer.
Please feel free to forward this email to any friends or colleagues who you think may be interested in the eugris website.
Happy Hunting!

The EUGRIS team

Best regards,
Joop

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 31 COMMON FORUM meeting in the Netherlands februari 2008

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

Dear All,
1] COMMON FORUM meeting
The plans for the next COMMON FORUM meeting in February 2008 in the Netherlands are under development. It will be a full 2 days meeting starting at 10:00 on the first day and ending at 15:00 on the second day . Please check your agenda for 2008 and send me your preferred dates for the meeting. There are two options:

A] 3e week of February: Thursday 21 and Friday 22
B] 4e week of February: Thursday 21 and Friday 22
Please check your agenda for 2008 and send me your preferred dates (option A or B) for the meeting.
I will inform you about the agenda at a later stage, after consulting the COMMON FORUM agenda committee.

2] EUGRIS NEWS
Please find the latest EUGRIS news eugris-2007-10-24.doc

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 30 report COMMON FORUM meeting in Stockholm 12 September 2007 and NICOLE invitation

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Dear All,
Some news again from COMMON FORUM

1] Our last meeting in Stockholm 12 September 2007
This meeting followed the succesfull ICCL meeting were we met colleagues from non EU countries and had interesting discussions which were also relevant for current developments in the contaminated land field in EU. The reports of the ICCL meeting will be published by our Finnish colleagues which were the secretariat of this meeting. During the COMON FORUM part we could welcome new members from Romania and Portugal and maybe Estonia.
The COMMON FORUM meeting which was almost entirely devoted to the proposals for a EU Soil Framework Directive. Please find the report of the meeting attached

2] Invitation to attend the NICOLE Network Meeting on 14-16 November 2007 in Brussels
The subject of this meeting will be: “Using baselines in liability management; what do upcoming Directives require from us?”
The meeting is hosted Solvay S.A., Rue de Ransbeek 310, B-1120 Brussels, Belgium. Please find the invitation letter, programme and meeting information attached

3] EUGRIS news:
Please find EUGRIS updates for August and September attached

4] Next COMMON FORUM meetings
Our next meeting will be in The Hague in the Netherlands, most probably in februari 2008. A second meeting is planned in the second half of 2008 probably in France, during the French EU presidency. In between we could also meet during the free wednesday afternoon during the CONSOIL conference in in Milano in june 2008. I will inform you as soon as I have more information about the next meeting in the Netherlands

ATTACHMENTS:
a) Common Forum
- Stockholm meeting report: stockmeetingreport.doc
b)Eugris
eugris-2007-8-24.doc
eugris-2007-9-25.doc
c)Nicole
-preliminary workshop program: preliminary-program.pdf

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 29 Preliminary draft report COMMON FORUM meeting in Stockholm 12 September 2007

Friday, September 14th, 2007

Dear All,
Please find the draft meeting report attached. COMMON FORUM mainly discussed the proposal for the Soil Framework Directive as amended by the Portuguese presidency. COMMON FORUM observed that the amendments are in the right direction but add also many details a the directive that is intended to be a framework. COMMON FORUM also concluded that the discussion in the Council of the EU would greatly improve if a thematic technical workshop could be organised to discuss certain issues in more detail and to make the ambitions of the directive clearer. I do hope that some country will take up this initiative and propose such a workshop to the Presidency.

For reference I attach the results of previous COMMON FORUM discussions, and the SFD text as amended by the Portuguese presidency. The document SFDCOMFORDRAFT5.doc is new but the difference with the previous SFDCOMFORDRAFT4.doc is a very small change in the proposed article 11-4-c : within 25 years from [transposition date] for the remaining sites is changed into within 25 years after [transposition date] for at least 90% of the sites.
The reason for this change is that the identification and assessment of sites is seen as a running programme and the lag between location of suspect sites and their assessment should decrease in time. The previous text suggested that inventories should be really comprehensive and complete after 25 years.

Pleas feel free to comment on the preliminary report and the SFDCOMFORDRAFT5.doc. I will read and respond to your comments in the last week of september.

ATTACHMENTS:
-Meeting report: preliminary-report-report.doc

-Common forum statements about SFD: sfdcomfor2.doc

-Common forum suggestions for text changes in SFD: sfdcomfordraft5.doc

-Portugese presidency document: st12765-en07-sept-11-9-2007.doc

Regards,
joop

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 28 COMMON FORUM meeting in Stockholm 12 September 2007

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Dear all,
Please find the agenda and additional information:

-Meeting agenda: (cfagenda-stockholm.doc )
-Common forum statements about SFD: (sfdcomfor2.doc )
-Common forum suggestions for text changes in SFD: ( sfdcomfordraft4.doc)
-Draft EP report about SFD: ( envi_pr2007378893_en.doc)
-Amendments draft EP reports ( second part dealing with contamination): ( envi_am2007part-2-en.doc)
-Portugese presidency document: (footnote-doc-sfd.doc )

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 27 ICCL and COMMON FORUM meeting in Stockholm 10-12 September 2007

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

Dear All,

1] COMMON FORUM
The COMMON FORUM meeting in Stockholm is approaching. In view of the developments of the discussions about the Soil Framework Directive we need to adapt the agenda for the meeting. The Portuguese Presidency has put the discussion on the Soil Framework Directive in very high gear. The European Parliament also published reports containing many amendments , some of these in line with COMMON FORUM ideas, fortunately, but there are also other types of amendment. I would like to propose to spend all time available on 12 September to a discussion on the draft text the Presidency will deliver by the end of this month/beginning of September, and other texts that are available. That means that the meeting on 12 september will not end on 14.00 as indicated in previous COMMOM FORUM news, but will continue till 17.30. I do hope that most of you have booked evening flights or flights on 13 september. In any case it would be appreciated if you could stay as long as possible. Our meeting may be crucial as a council working party meeting will be held on Sept 17th on text of the Portugese presidency.
There is also an opportunity to discuss the SFD in more general terms in session C of the ICCL meeting on 11 September.
I will prepare a document aiming to provide some structure for the discussion which I will send you short before the meeting. This document will be based on texts, amendments. reports of EP and Presidency as available early September, but it can of course not cover last minute information, however our meetings are usually flexible enough to accommodate these if necessary.

I will keep you informed about further details about the ICCL and COMMON FORUM meeting agenda.

2] OTHER NEWS:
Eugris news July 2007 (eugris-2007-7-24.doc)

COMMON FORUM NEWS NR. 26 REGISTRATION FOR ICCL and COMMON FORUM in Stockholm 10-12 September 2007

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Dear All,
May I remind you to register for the ICCL meeting and book your hotel in Stockholm BEFORE 08 AUGUST ?
I expect that most of you have received an invitation from the ICCL organisers on June 5th. The invitation and accompanying files are:
Invitation.
Practical information (registration)
Questionnaire
Even if you only want to come to the COMMON FORUM meeting (11 september about issues also of interest for ICCL and 12 september for COMMON FORUM matters) it is necessary I think to register for ICCL and to make use of the suggested hotels in the attached files. Of course I do expect that all COMMON FORUM members and guests will be present at the full ICCL meeting.
The COMMON FORUM meeting will end in the early afternoon of 12 September say 14.00hrs, to allow for afternoon and evening flights home.
Regards,
joop