Manana Kochladze Kety Gujaraidze November 2006

1. Greening the ENP Georgia projectimplemented with support DG Environment, in cooperation with HBf and WWF EPO office Manana Kochladze Kety Gujaraidze November 2006

2. ENP Process in Georgia • In June 2004 the three South Caucasus countries - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, were included in Wider Neighbourhood Initiative of the EU. • In March 2005 EU presented the country report and recommendations for Action Plan preparation • In October 2006 the EU and Georgian representatives signed government and EC the AP for 2007-2013 and defined priorities of cooperation.

3. Action Plan Action Plan encourages fulfillment of Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation and Georgia’s future integration in Europe’s economic and social structures. Implementation of the AP should significantly facilitate the process of harmonization of Georgian legislation, norms and standards with those of the EU and this in itself, creates foundation for economic integration, growth of trade, investments and economy.

4. Greening the Action Plan • Georgian government nor EC formally established the procedures of public participation at the onset of the elaboration of the plan. • The governmental commission to develop Action Plan created a council of experts, which included several public representatives. • In parallel, Georgian civil society representatives formed a coalition of NGOs to provide recommendations for Action Plan. The coalition was supported by Heinrich Boll Foundation, Eurasia Foundation and Open Society Georgia Foundation. • After working for several months about 70 NGOs presented recommendations concerning the AP, which the Georgian government later called “an alternative action plan”. • Future lobby on different issues of alternative action plan was undertaken on national and international level • Significant part of the recommendations presented by NGOs were taken into consideration in the final version of the AP. • Green Alternative actively participated in process and lead elaboration of recommendations in Sustainable development, Environmental Protection and Poverty Reduction part;

5. Within the frame of NGO coalition work GA actively continue to assess the different drafts of the Action plan and submitted comments to Government and EC representatives • To facilitate more understanding about challenges and trends of ENP implementation in Georgia was organized number of workshops for Georgian Environmental groups with support of Heinrich Boell foundation Caucasus Office. • The first workshop overview EU institutions and ENP process, as well as challenges its implementation. During the Workshop was decided to focus “Greening the ENP Georgia Project” implementation to assess the ongoing situation in Environmental governance and cases to be explored, to have clear benchmark for the future process; • follow up workshops was dedicated to detail reviews of the research and case studies that has been done by Green Alternative and experts hired. • As a result the report “Environmental Governance in Georgia and How Can the EU Contribute to Its Strengthening” was prepared • In parallel was analyzed the High Level Group Report on TENs enlargement and presented possibilities for public participation. As a result number of Georgian Groups developed specific comments to commission with regards of the EU with support of Green Alternative • Use different media opportunity to highlight importance of Georgia -EU action plan and its coherence with different existing plans in Georgia and vice versa (e.g. EBRD Country Strategy Comments) • Together with number of foundations HBf, Eurasia and OSI, GA representative takes the part in board of ENP newsletter that is prepared in Georgian and English and address acute issues of ENP implementation.

6. Environmental Governance in Georgia and How Can the EU Contribute to Its Strengthening • To conduct research was used the seven elements of environmental governance defined in the joint report drawn up by four international organizations in 2003: United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program, World Bank and World Resources Institute. • Those elements are: • legislation and institutional setting, • participation right, • distribution of competences, • transparency and accountability, • property rights, • market and finances • science and risk.

7. The report identifies two stages in the development of environmental governance system in Georgia: (i) 90-ies and the period before the 2003 Rose Revolution and (ii) the period after the Rose Revolution up until now. • During the first period of development of environmental governance the elements of new environmental governance system were formed after the collapse of the Soviet system. Institutions and legislation were created that more or less included the main principles of good environmental governance: transparency, participation and accountability. • After the revolution development of environmental governance characterized with frequent institutional and legislative changes that are directly related to the government’s drive towards complete liberalization and deregulation of economy and the desire to increase the state budget incomes with all means (including more exploitation of natural resources and changing the ownership status). • These changes were not made in a transparent way and in consultation with the stakeholders. As a result of these changes the opportunities for public to be informed and to participate in the decision-making were even more limited. Moreover, in parallel to limiting the access to information and public participation, these changes also limited the access to justice.

8. EU-Georgia AP and Env. governance What needs to be done • Periodic evaluation of country’s environmental governance and the progress made towards achieving the goals of the ENP in environmental governance especially in legislation approximation field. • It is necessary to create open and transparent mechanisms of public participation in the format of structured consultation with EC and the Georgian government, this should be done during the elaboration, implementation and monitoring of the activities indicated in the Action Plan and ENPI. • Guaranteeing public participation and organization of public meetings of disputable issues are necessary for the implementation of the AP. The particular attention must be paid to effective expenditure, direct benefits for the population of the country and minimal damage to environment and the pubic. • Evaluation of the implementation of the AP must be based on extensive consultation process so that subjective, or unrealistic evaluations caused by the lack of information can be avoided.

9. Projects and programs implemented with the assistance of EU (both through ENPI and EIB) must unconditionally comply with the environmental policy requirements and standards of EU, especially in the spheres of energy and transport: • Horizontal instruments existing in EU must become integral parts of the AP implementation. • Any program must be preceded by strategic environmental assessment, not to mention the necessity of integrated social and environmental assessment at the project level. • EC should have an administrative resource, which will assist Georgian government in planning and implementation of specific projects in accordance to the directives of EU. • As the infrastructural programs are usually implemented faster than environmental programs, it is necessary to avoid negative impact both on the existing and planned protected areas, for example, on the protected areas included in the Emerald Network (which is an analogue of Natura 2000) and the areas protected under Ramsar Convention. • Due to the close interrelationship between poverty and environmental governance, we believe that: Based on public consensus, the projects must be identified within the AP that would first of all satisfy the interests of the local communities based on the principles of sustainable development. • A balance should be established between mega-projects and small-scale projects directed at specific groups • EC should pay more attention to monitoring of Georgia’s compliance to international conventions, including Aarhus Convention.

10. Future plans • Participate and monitoring process of elaboration time table and detailed action plan for AP • Political dialogue between the government, MPs and civil society around the issues raised within the report, as well as other fields • Main topics: forestry, water, infrastructure, energy, mining and natural disaster management • Monitoring implementation of ENP AP (by EU, Governments and IFIs) in 2007-2008 • Foster public participation in decision-making with regards of ENP AP