4th seminar of the PlanNet Europe network on strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of urbanism plans and programs
Brussels, October 24 and 25, 2005
The 4th seminar of the PlanNet Europe Network was held this year in Brussels, following the first three seminars which took place in Berlin in 2001 and 2002 and in Paris in 2004. It was organised by the Ministry of the Brussels-Capital Region, with the help of the Institute of Environmental Management and Physical Planning (Free University of Brussels), the Ministry of Flanders and the Ministry of the Walloon Region.
The objective of this meeting was to have a global view of the new examples of SEA practices which have been set up following the transposition of Directive 2001/04/EC in European Member States. Amongst these examples, a special attention was given to:
- the way in which an exception to SEA is argued because of the lack of significant environmental effects of a plan/program (article 3 of the Directive)
- the steps followed in Countries or Regions to implement the SEA process
- the relationships (notion of independence) between the authors of a plan/program and:
- the actors responsible for the assessment
- the authorities consulted during the assessment process
- the relationships (tiering) between strategic environmental assessment and project environmental impact assessment
- the way in which Member States are going to implement the monitoring of plans and programmes submitted to a SEA (required by article 10 of the Directive).
The seminar brought together representatives of the European Commission, of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and of 20 Member States of the European Union (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom).
The lectures given during the seminar can be downloaded on this website.
