The informal meeting of EU Environment Ministers will be held in Sofia on 10 and 11 April 2018 at the National Palace of Culture.
The informal meeting will focus on three important issues:
- ambient air quality,
- better regulation and
- climate change.
During the first day of the meeting the discussions will be focused on the protection of human health and the environment and on possible solutions that would improve ambient air quality. Air pollution is a serious environmental and social issue which poses many challenges related to the management and mitigation of the impact from harmful pollutants. This is an issue which needs to be addressed, as all individual EU Member States, as well as the EU as a whole, are facing it.
The next session will be dedicated to finding better solutions for better implementation of the EU environment legislation. The ministers will discuss three main topics: the existing tools for capacity building among which the Peer-to-Peer tool for exchange of good practices among Member States; cross-sectoral cooperation with a focus on the Clean Air Dialogues and the EIR country dialogues; and, last but not least, streamlining reporting obligations and reducing administrative burden. The discussion will specifically stress the need for more coherence between sectoral legislation.
The second day will commence at 10:30 a.m. and will be devoted to international climate negotiations and the Talanoa Dialogue. The year 2018 is crucial for reaching an agreement on the Paris Agreement Work Programme and ensuring that the parallel processes foreseen at the COP24, namely, the political phase of the Talanoa Dialogue, the pre-2020 stocktake and the High Level event on climate finance are also successful and constructive.
*Due to unexpected circumstances the press conference has been rescheduled to start at 15:30 instead of 17:00 as previously announced.
Neno Dimov, Minister of Environment and Water of Bulgaria, doorstep
Arrival, doorstep, handshake
Official signing of the Program Agreement of Environment and Climate Change Programme under EEA Financial Mechanism 2014 – 2021
Roundtable before session I and opening remarks by Neno Dimov, Minister of the Environment and Water of Bulgaria
Family photo
Press conference
Highlights
Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary at Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety of Germany, doorstep
Photos
Signing of EEA Program Agreement, Family photo and Press conference