Minutes GSN Core Group Meeting Project: Secretariat for EECN Client: European Commission (EC), DG ENV Contact: Ewa Lindkvist Contact BIO IS: Rita Schuster / Souresh Cornet Tel: +33 1 53 90 11 80 Email: EECN_Secretariat@biois.com Content: Annual Meeting 2012, Berlin... 2 Best Practice competition... 3 2013 Annual Meeting... 43 To do list... 53
Participants: GSN Core Group EECN Secretariat Hildegard Kaiser (DE, president) Eva Lindkvist (EC DG ENV) Kirsi Norros (FI) Béatrice Galin (FR) Evelina Daugirdaitē (LT) Cristina Garção (PT) Rita Schuster (BIO IS) Souresh Cornet (BIO IS) Excused: Annette Weber (AT), Katja Rosenbohm (EEA), Madalina Cozma (EEA) Annual Meeting 2012, Berlin Agenda updates Hildegard Kaiser explained that Kaitlyn Wilkins from Ogilvy will do a lecture on social media and comment the best practices during the competition. She was sent the rough results of the Social media survey by the Secretariat through Hildegard so that she can use them as a basis for her preparation of the meeting. The Secretariat highlighted the fact that the presentation on the communication priorities under the Irish EU Presidency was not yet sorted. The Irish GSN member Siobhán Nic Thighearnáin was not able to attend the meeting, the Secretariat had therefore made a request to have another speaker on the presidency. No reply was received so far. Hildegard Kaiser suggested therefore to skip the presentation and to allocate the time slot to the presentation of the German communication expert that was initially planned for the next day. It was briefly discussed how participants should select the workshops on the last Annual Meeting day. It was proposed and agreed upon that the members should choose their workshop the first day of registration. Concerning the meals, Hildegard Kaiser proposed the Secretariat ask participants in advance for their special dietary needs so there is enough time to inform the hotel what to prepare. The Secretariat will send an email to the participants at the beginning of September. The collected information will be given to Hildegard Kaiser one week before the meeting. 2
Social media survey outcome Hildegard Kaiser asked to place online after the Annual Meeting the outcome of the Social media questionnaire. The Secretariat will contact Ms Wilkins to see in what way she will use the questionnaire results, and if she needs any assistance in analysing them (e.g. by representing them graphically). The results should be made available to everybody on the GSN website (on the page dedicated to the Annual Meeting 2012: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/networks/greenspider/am2012.html). Core group renewal The Secretariat said that Croatia and the Czech Republic are willing to become members of the next Core Group in September. Both members (Simona Losmanová from the Czech Republic and Branka Pivčević Novak from Croatia) will be present at the Annual Meeting. The Core Group agreed that they could become new Core Group members at the Annual Meeting. Regarding the countries that should leave the Core Group, previous research by the Secretariat revealed that among the current Core Group members, Germany and Portugal are the countries which stayed the longest in the Core Group, so it would be fair if they could give their seat to new countries. However Kirsi Norros objected that leaving aside two countries with great knowledge would be a big loss for the Core Group. Cristina Garção said that her remaining in the Core Group will depend on whether she will keep her position in the Ministry. She should be able to know more about it by September. It was decided that the next Core Group meeting will be held at the beginning of the Annual Meeting in Berlin on the 26 th of September at noon (during the registration time/lunch), in the German Ministry of Environment. Best Practice competition The Secretariat had received 12 applications for this year s Best Practice competition. Hildegard Kaiser said that it would be a pity to skip any of the applications as it would be interesting to hear all of their presentations during the Annual Meeting. The Secretariat remarked that there should be at least 10 to 15 minutes of presentation per application, plus 5 minutes of discussion/questions. 3
The Secretariat proposed to shorten the presentation of its activities to 10 minutes. This would give an extra 20 minutes to the presentation of Best Practices. Hildegard added that the coffee break scheduled between 11 and 11.20 could be shortened also. Italy submitted two applications. It was proposed to ask Italy to choose one of the two applications for the competition in order to reduce the number of presentations at the meeting. Hildegard Kaiser asked the Secretariat to clarify with Italy which campaign they wanted to have at the competition. Béatrice Galin said that the Greek campaign on the planning and implementation of energy efficiency in private housing was more about politics than communication and as a result, should not be included in the best practice competition. The Core Group agreed with her. She also noticed that there are many applications about national parks, which are in her opinion more a promotion of tourism, and not about sustainable development. The other Core Group members did not all share her opinion, these applications were therefore not excluded. It was agreed between all members of the Core Group that the Greek campaign does not fit into the framework of the competition. It would therefore be eliminated from the competition. The Secretariat should write a letter to Greece explaining the reasons for its elimination. The purpose of the Best Practice competition is about environmental communication and this application did not focus enough on the communication aspect. The Secretariat will prepare a letter to Greece, which will be sent to Ewa Lindkvist and Hildegard Kaiser first for validation. The facilitator, Ms Wilkins, will do an introduction to the Best Practice competition and will also comment on the best practices. Hildegard asked the Secretariat to prepare an award certificate for the Best Practice competition. It will be printed before the Awards in the evening of the second day with the names of the winners. 2013 Annual Meeting Previous to the meeting, Switzerland had announced that it was willing to organise the Annual Meeting 2013. The Core Group discussed if and how the next Annual Meeting could be held in Switzerland. Ewa Lindkvist stated that from the EU side it was not possible to finance an event organised by a non-eu country. Also, as the contract of the current Secretariat is running out this year, there are internal discussions at the EC on how to possibly change the way the network is working. The EC is currently also looking into the functioning of other networks in order to find the best solution for GSN. One of the issues that have come up is the problem of having meetings outside of Brussels, and 4
the length of meetings. An idea would be to continue to hold meetings in other countries, but to make them shorter. Hildegard Kaiser suggested the idea of co-organising the next meeting between Switzerland and one of its neighbouring countries such as France, Italy, and Austria. Béatrice Galin said that she would check if this is feasible for France financially. Kirsi Norros stated that if there is no solution at the Annual Meeting, the other alternative for 2013 would be to hold the meeting in Brussels. The EC highlighted that the idea of holding a more modest Annual Meeting should be considered. Hildegard Kaiser noted that Austria has an experience in co-organising a meeting with another country (with Cyprus in 2001). Presently the economic context does not offer many options. It was decided that if it was not possible for Switzerland to co-organise the meeting with another country, it will be held in Brussels. In the latter case, it will be organised by the EC (not Belgium because the country did not volunteer to host the meeting and was already the host in 2010). Hildegard Kaiser suggested to Ewa to send out a letter to the neighbouring countries with Switzerland, giving them the framework of conditions to organise a meeting with Switzerland. Ewa will see with the Secretariat what is the best approach. To do list EC: Send a letter to the neighbouring countries of Switzerland explaining the framework of conditions to organise a meeting with Switzerland. EECN Secretariat: The Secretariat will contact Ms Wilkins to see in what way she will use the Social Media survey results. The results will be available to everyone e on the GSN website (on the page dedicated to the Annual Meeting 2012: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/networks/greenspider/am2012.html. The Secretariat will clarify with Italy which campaign they want to enter into the competition. The Secretariat will write a letter to Greece explaining the reasons for its elimination: the purpose of the Best Practice competition is about environmental communication and this application did not focus enough on the communication aspect. The Secretariat will prepare an award certificate. 5
The Secretariat will send an email to the participants at the beginning of September asking them for their dietary needs at the Annual Meeting. 6