This year’s EU Green Week and the theme of the opening conference both focused on the reports on the implementation of environmental legislation by individual Member States, published by the European Commission in April this year.

“Poland welcomes the European Commission’s initiative regarding carrying out regular reviews of the process of implementing EU climate policy by individual Member States with great interest,” said Minister Henryk Kowalczyk.

“It is worth pointing out that the evaluation in the review by the European Commission is consistent with the assessment of the state of the environment of the inhabitants of Poland,” the Minister added.

Since 2011, the Ministry of Environment has been conducting a regular, nationwide study of ecological awareness and behaviours among Polish citizens. The results of the survey conducted in 2018 indicate that in terms of the environment, Poles cite air pollution, waste management and climate change as the top challenges faced by Poland.

“The fact that Poles increasingly believe that environmental protection may have a positive impact on the development of the country’s economy is definitely a positive change. The results of our study also clearly show that the state of our environment depends on the commitment of each and every one of us”, said Minister Kowalczyk.

Currently, environmental education, informing the public about changes in the law on environmental protection, as well as implementation of the government’s Clean Air programme are of key importance for the ministry. In addition to that, in terms of Polish waste management system, the organisational reform in the Environmental Protection Inspectorate, aimed at rationalising its structure and working out a new financing system was also an extremely important measure. These and other successfully carried out tasks in the current term of office all constitute a part of the new opening of the next fifteen years of Poland in the European Union in the context of environmental policy.

The event was accompanied by a bilateral meeting with the Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella. The talks focused on global environmental challenges.