A high-level conference on disaster preparedness and prevention will be hosted in Sofia in April 2008 by Bulgaria, as SEECP Chair.

Conscious of the role played in this respect by ECE and recalling, inter alia, the ECE Guidelines on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making endorsed in the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the Third Ministerial Conference ‘Environment for Europe’ in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 25 October 1995,

Further conferences held in Lucerne (1993), Sofia (1995) and Aarhus (1998) continued this process.

The Dobris Castle Conference established the "Environment for Europe" process to meet these needs and its mandate was reaffirmed at further conferences held in Lucerne (1993), Sofia (1995) and Aarhus (1998).

(7) The United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context of 25 February 1991, which applies to both Member States and other States, encourages the parties to the Convention to apply its principles to plans and programmes as well; at the second meeting of the Parties to the Convention in Sofia on 26 and 27 February 2001, it was decided to prepare a legally binding protocol on strategic environmental assessment which would supplement the existing provisions on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context, with a view to its possible adoption on the occasion of the 5th Mi ...[+++]nisterial Conference "Environment for Europe" at an extraordinary meeting of the Parties to the Convention, scheduled for May 2003 in Kiev, Ukraine.

(7) The United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context of 25 February 1991, which applies to both Member States and other States, encourages the parties to the Convention to apply its principles to plans and programmes as well; at the second meeting of the Parties to the Convention in Sofia on 26 and 27 February 2001, it was decided to prepare a legally binding protocol on strategic environmental assessment which would supplement the existing provisions on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context, with a view to its possible adoption on the occasion of the 5th Mi ...[+++]nisterial Conference "Environment for Europe" at an extraordinary meeting of the Parties to the Convention, scheduled for May 2003 in Kiev, Ukraine.