European Environment Agency
The European Environment Agency (EEA) was set up in Copenhagen in 1994. The EEA is charged with providing political decision-makers and the public with information on the state of the environment in Europe and with monitoring the impacts of environmental policy. The information is intended to assist the planning and implementation of environmental policy measures in the EU and its member states.
Six major reports on the state of the environment have been issued so far. The latest, The European Environment – State and Outlook 2005, contains an overview spanning five years and 32 countries. The next report will be published in the autumn of 2010.
The EEA compares the state of the environment in Europe
The report on the state of the environment published in 2005 brings up a number of challenges. We must consider not only climate change, but also biological diversity, marine ecosystems, supplies of land and water, and air pollution and human health. For the first time the report contains a comparison of the state of the environment and its development in all member states of the EEA, based on indicators.
EEA has a comprehensive programme of reports that discuss different topics. There are, for example, reports on the state of lakes and rivers in the EU, life-cycle analyses, air pollution, traffic issues, and biological diversity.
It is the policy of the EEA to make its information available for downloading from the internet free of charge. Documents and reports can be obtained from the links to the right.
Network for work coordination
To facilitate the task of collecting and analysing environmental information, the EEA cooperates with its member countries through the EIONET (European Environmental Observation and Information Network). The EIONET is a network of experts and institutions.
- The EEA currently has 32 members. They are the 27 EU member states, the EU candidate country Turkey, and the EES countries Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
- EU candidate countries Macedonia and Croatia and the other west-Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia) have applied for membership.
As this implies, the European Environment Agency is an EU institution that is open for membership for all European countries.
The role of the Swedish EPA
The Swedish EPA cooperates with the European Environment Agency as a National Focal Point (NFP). This function of the Swedish EPA is managed by the EEA coordinators, Ninni Borén and Lena Svärd. As an NFP, the Swedish EPA is one of the nodes of EIONET. Sweden has 32 experts from eight authorities in the network, and the Director-General of the Swedish EPA, Maria Ågren, is the Swedish representative on the EEA Management Board.
Contact: Ninni Borén, ninni.boren(a)naturvardsverket.se and Lena Svärd, lena.svard(a)naturvardsverket.se