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Stole Georgiev
We will create a sustainable green-lobby group in the Parliament
On 26th October 2007 the first constitutional meeting of the Parliamentarian green lobby-group was held in the Parliament and 14 members of the parliament – members took part, the ambassador of Great Britain, Andrew Key, the minister of environment and spatial planning, Dzelil Bajrami, representatives of the media and the members of the project team of the department ministry. At this meeting the members of the lobby-group adopted its program, which will in the future be complemented with annexes and an action plan will be developed for its implementation.
The group’s program decisions are: promotion and representation of interests of the civil society and citizens of Macedonia for setting up principles of sustainable development and environmental protection on a higher priority level in creating national policy; strengthening the cooperation with citizens’ associations and citizens by promoting national and local environmental problems and finding sustainable solutions as a primary national interest; acceleration of the procedure for adopting the necessary legal regulation on environment and raising initiatives for amending the existing legal regulation in accordance with the EU requirements and those of the international principles for sustainable development; following the work of the institutions responsible for implementation of the legal regulation and the national policies on environmental protection and sustainable development; lobbying and representation of the interests of environmental protection and sustainable development while creating a fiscal national policy and budget allocation; raising initiatives for creating a national policy for meeting the Millennium development goals set by UN and meeting Macedonia’s obligations by signing the Millennium declaration in 2000. My expectations and those of the Macedonian Green Center is that we will create a sustainable green lobby-group in the parliament that will endure and be active after our project is completed and its members during the parliamentarian mandate will lobby for issues from the field of environment and sustainable development.
The idea to lobby for the issues from the field of environment and sustainable development in Macedonia has been present since its independence, especially with forming and development of the non-governmental movement that started at the beginning of the ‘90s, particularly with the establishment of the first ecological associations and the ecological movement in the country. However, the greatest number of initiatives for lobbying has come with the presence of many international organizations and donors, especially with the Government’s decision for EU accession.
With an initiative by Millieucontact International, in 2005, during the local elections, a Working group for turning the local elections green (WGTLEG) was established, containing of local citizens’ associations that work in the field environmental protection, so that the local problems to be included in the program of the candidates for mayors. The results from the elections were a motive for WGTLEG to take activities also during the parliamentarian elections in 2006, when the group changed its name and was registered as a citizens’ association called “Macedonian Green Center” – an association for research, representation and lobbying in the field of environment and it was founded by six associations that work in the field of environment.
The basic motive for establishing the “Parliamentarian green lobby-group” resulted from the realized successful cooperation with some of the candidates for members of the parliament, who after the elections, were in the Assembly.
One of the important indicators for the need for the group were the data received with the research carried out during the previous parliamentarian composition, when there were 1.641 questions by the members of the parliament to the government and department ministries, out of which 3,2% were addressed to the minister of environment.
After the research, a proposal-project was prepared for its establishment, financed by the British embassy and it started its realization in April this year until March 2008. In the preparatory phase of the project the project team realized a series of meetings with different institutions and organizations related to environment, as well as with the Parliamentarian women lobby and the lobby-group for people with special needs. We have communicated with the members of the parliament, the presidents of the commissions and we have come across some interested members of the parliament for membership in the lobby-group that already has 15 members of different political parties, both position and opposition, ethnical groups in the parliament, ready to lobby on the issues related to environment and sustainable development.
(the author is Project Coordinator “Creating Parliamentarian Green Lobby Group” within the Macedonian Green Center)
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