Th.Ruddy's Report


Report from Meeting on 26th May

Thomas Ruddy spoke on What Future Do We Want for DG Trade’s Sustainability Impact Assessment? (PDF)

In the workshop he observed that the EU is built on a hybrid political system. Although a certain voter fatigue is apparent in the parliamentary "formal" channel for civil society input to the legislative process, voters are flocking to NGOs in the informal channel.

He protested against the titles of the workshops, which did not include sustainable development as a basic principle of the communication workshop, but rather relegated it to a separate workshop. If one accepted sustainable development as a basic principle of policymaking, on could see more clearly the Sustainable Development Strategies (SDS) in the member states and the EU SDS with its link to the Commission-wide IA. Although the current process for developing an EU SDS is fraught with weaknesses, researchers are developing new models of democracy, which civil society could consider.

Later several NGOs demonstrated that they still do care about SIA by issuing a joint letter of protest to Catherine Ashton, the European Trade Commissioner, concerning the Trade Sustainability Impact Assessment of the proposed EU-Central America free trade agreement.

Updated: 19th June 2009

Surf back up to http://www.wsis.ethz.ch/seri.htm SERI member page Thomas Ruddy

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