Introduction

The report is aimed at all those concerned with the environment professionally, as well as those with a more general interest. It is intended to provide an objective basis for planners and developers involved in policy making and programming in environment and sectorial fields. It should also serve to inform and raise awareness generally about environmental problems facing Europe today.

This overview has been produced to help make the report accessible, introducing some of the main findings and results which have been reached.

Background to the report

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), convened in June 1992, stressed that a new responsibility for environmental protection had to be shared by all countries if sustainable development were to become a reality. UNCED's action plan, 'Agenda 21', outlines the actions needed to halt and reverse environmental degradation and bring about sustainable development in all countries.

These concerns have also been the subject of a series of European initiatives. The Bergen Ministerial Conference (May 1990) on sustainable development in the ECE region emphasized the need to improve reporting on the state of the environment. Prompted by the changes occurring in Central and Eastern Europe, a joint meeting of environment ministers from this region, the EU and EFTA was held in Dublin in June 1990. This meeting produced the idea of holding regular European ministerial conferences to address environmental matters. The first of these 'pan-European' conferences took place in Dobris Castle in the former Czechoslovakia in June 1991. It was at this conference that the present report on the state of the European environment was called for. The second conference was held in Lucerne (1993) and the third is scheduled for 1995 in Sofia, with the aim of adopting an Environmental Programme for Europe (EPE) for which this report is a basic input.

Form of the report

The report is presented in several parts. Part I introduces the context and the reporting techniques used. Part II assesses the state of the environment in eight different fields. Part III examines the pressures which impact the environment and Part IV describes the sources of these pressures - human activities - in eight different sectors. Part V summarizes twelve major environmental problems in Europe. The major highlights of the report are concluded in Part VI, summarizing for each theme important findings, responses and policy options, information strengths and gaps. A statistical compendium to the report is published separately by Eurostat.

The countries of Europe