Symposium

Brussels, April 5th, 2006

in the
Permanent Representation of Austria to the European Union

The institutions of the European Union encourage the participation of civil society in the monitoring and implementation of the strategy and there are ideas to deepen the involvement of civil society organisations.

An essential step forward could be a shift from monitoring and commenting the strategy to an active involvement in the implementation: "Shared Ownership" would mean that political institutions and civil society organisations regard the strategy as a common "project".

The symposium, organised by the Brussels-EU Chapter and the European Support Centre of the Club of Rome in co-operation with the Austrian EU Presidency intended to give answers to the following questions:

• How can environmentally and socially oriented civil society initiatives monitor and contribute to the new strategy and which are the options for organisations on the European, national, regional and local level?

• Independent advisory councils for Sustainable Development, with civil society representatives as members, exist in many states. Which conclusions can be drawn for the EU level?

• Which are the chances of participation and co-operation, which are the problems civil society is confronted with and how could they be solved?

• The Sustainability Strategy and the Lisbon Strategy: are they antipodes or are they allies and which are the differences in civil society participation in the two strategies?