Green Week

The aims are manifold: to permit an intensive debate between EU institutions and experts on individual issues of a political, legal, economic, social and environmental nature; to gather information and opinions and compare “good practices”; to involve public opinion, raise its awareness and enable it to participate in specific Community initiatives. These are the objectives of the so-called “special weeks” promoted by the EU, as well as a host of “ad hoc days”, conferences, forums and so on. In this context we can place “Green Week” now being celebrated in Brussels (12-15 June) and the recent European Youth Week (3-10 June). PAST LESSONS, FUTURE CHALLENGES. “At a time when the EU is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of integration, the current Green Week will concentrate on the lessons learnt from the environmental actions of the past and examine ways of applying them to the emerging problems, such as climate change, threats to biodiversity and the serious repercussions on natural resources”, explained STAVROS DIMAS , Commissioner for the Environment. The Commissioner worked together with his staff in defining the programme of the Green Week now underway in the European quarter of Brussels, with its epicentre in the historic Palais Charlemagne. The special week has brought to the Belgian capital 4,000 delegates to participate in a conference subdivided into 22 round tables, complemented by two exhibitions on eco-energies and numerous stands to promote wider knowledge of the interventions of the EU and the activities of agencies and associations in this sector. The connecting thread, the common denominator, of the many proposals is the slogan “Past lessons, future challenges”. “Green Week – explained Dimas inaugurating the event – tackles fifty years of environmental policy, with the aim of identifying its successes and failures, drawing lessons and looking at the challenges that Europe will have to face in the future”. CLIMATE, NATURAL RESOURCES, HUMAN HEALTH. EU initiatives in these areas especially promote opportunities for study, for the exchange of experiences, and for planning for the future; the results don’t always live up to the expectations, but renouncing them would mean depriving citizens of valuable opportunities for debate. Indeed, it would be necessary to bring the “special weeks” or forums to a greater number of cities, and thus reach an even bigger audience. Many issues are being proposed in the current Green Week, now in progress in Brussels: on Tuesday 12 June the participants focused on environmental policy in its historical perspective. Possible future scenarios are being studied on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 June, while on Friday 15 “the conclusions of the debates conducted will be drawn”. Some seventy stands have been mounted for Green Week; they provide an opportunity to meet experts, representatives of the EU institutions, of national and local authorities, of NGOs and of the “green industries”. The issues most hotly debated during Green Week include climate change (with the latest decisions taken on the matter at the EU and G8 levels), the link between human health and the environment, the sustainable use of natural resources and the soil, transport and biofuels. The speakers invited to speak include Klaus Töpfer, former director of the UN Programme for the Environment; Jacqueline McGlade, director of the EU Agency for the Environment; and Julia Marton-Lefèvre, director of the World Conservation Union. THE UNDER-30s PROMOTE THE UE. “Discuss, let yourselves get involved and contribute to the Europe of your future”: that’s the message that EU Commissioner JAN FIGEL had formulated on the eve of European Youth Week 2007, held from 3 to 10 June. The event, now in its third year, programmed over twenty meetings including debates, workshops, exchanges of experiences, with widespread youth events in member states and with central events in Brussels, to which two hundred “under 30s” were invited. European Youth Week (with the logo Eyw2007) “offered the young opportunities to express their opinions on the future of Europe and on the crucial theme of social integration and the diversity of the young generations”. Both Commissioner Figel and many of the young participants expressed satisfaction at the end of the week. The new EU youth programme “Youth in Action”, valid for the period 2007-2013, was presented during the week. To mark the occasion, Eurobarometer also published a survey in which 19,000 people, aged between 15 and 30, replied to questions about the role of the Community, the meaning of citizenship, and such issues as education, work and economic independence. “The young tend to share a positive image of the EU and its future”, explained those responsible for the survey. Many young people “link the EU with the concept of freedom to travel, study and work abroad” and associate these opportunities with the idea itself of European citizenship. According to Eurobarometer, “33% of those interviewed would accept any kind of work, provided certain conditions were satisfied, such as stability and good pay, while only one in ten would accept a job without posing any conditions.