IMPEL 2000 Conference on Compliance and Enforcement

The IMPEL 2000 Conference on Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, which took place from October 11 to 13, 2000 in the Congress Center Villach (Carinthia, Austria) offered for the first time the possibility of presenting IMPEL to approximately 160 participants from the European Commission, the IMPEL Secretariat, the Members States and the Accession Countries, to raise public awareness as well as to discuss and evaluate the role of IMPEL.

Generally the conference aimed to give the IMPEL Network a broad platform of information, discussion and exchange of experience.

The first day of the conference (Wednesday, October 11, 2000) started with an Opening Session and 3 Plenary Sessions dealing with the History of IMPEL, the Environmental Policy and the Role of IMPEL, Enforcement of Environmental Law (Stick and Carrot) and IMPEL Products. On the second day, 4 parallel Topic Sessions took place concerning the main topics of the work of IMPEL (Networks, Inspection, IPPC, Environmental Information Systems). On the third day, the results of the 4 topic sessions were summarised and discussed in a Final Session.

During all days of the conference the IMPEL Market Place was open with two internet plug-in stations to inform about IMPEL activities and products.

The most important findings of the conference were summarised in the Conclusions – a document presented and discussed in the Final Session with the strong recommendation to foster and strengthen the network on a national and regional level within the EU and the Accession Countries. The participants of the conference encouraged the IMPEL Network to continue and develop its activities in line with its particular strengths, gave many ideas for future areas of co-operation and projects, such as further projects on integrated permitting and inspection, and called for further IMPEL Conferences to be held regularly to provide a forum to share experience and to strengthen networking.

With the agreement of all conference participants these conclusions were forwarded to the IMPEL Meeting in Paris, December 2000, where they were adopted.

The results of this conference are published in the final report.