EEB’s annual general meeting and annual conference

This year EEB’s annual conference “Changing Landscapes – Protecting the environment in a new Europe” was held in Scotland. The conference brought together civil society organisations from across Europe and other members of civil society and policy makers to discuss how to put the environment and people central in these times of uncertainty regarding the UK’s and Scotland’s future within an European context. A strong commitment of Scottish environmentalists was made to not abandon EU environmental protection laws within the Brexit negotiations (see here for more information).

On Tuesday the AGM took place, which had been prepared by the board on Sunday (Anke Stock is representing us on the board) leading to the election of a new President Jouni Nissinen from Finland (Stefan Scheuer lost the election by 4 votes). Furthermore, it was decided to reduce the number of Vice Presidents to 4. This led, unfortunately, to Bjela Vossen from Deutscher Naturschutzring not being re-elected. However, the exchange between member organisations and the adoption of important papers detailing governance structures, such as the establishment of an “Election Preparatory Committee” for better facilitation and preparation of elections of the president and VPs, were valuable. The future budget and work programme were presented and adopted and the communication strategy was discussed. The EEB is further committed to enlarge its membership in order to provide a broader basis to voice concerns on environmental issues even stronger.