Cooperation and Development Section ■ Delegation of the European Union to China and Mongolia
Operations Section
Europe Aid
Environmental Governance Programme
Beneficiary country
5 years
2010-2015
People’s Republic of China
EC Contribution
€ 15 000 000
China Contribution
€ 750 000 (in kind)
€ 3 750 000
Duration
Grantee Contribution
Location
Ministry of Commerce of China
(MOFCOM)
Ministry of Environment Protection
(MEP)
Throughout China
EU Delegation Contact
Person
Ms. Huang Xueju
Xueju.huang@eeas.europa.eu
Executing Authority
Implementing Agency
Programme Background
The EU-China Environmental Governance Programme (EGP) works to improve environmental
governance in China by strengthening environmental information disclosure, public participation,
access to justice and corporate environmental responsibility both at the national and local level.
The Government of China recognizes that the public and the private sector have an important role to
play in environmental governance and environmental protection. The Chinese Ministry of
Environmental Protection (MEP) places a high priority on improving the structure of environmental
governance, including innovative mechanisms and finding ways to better guarantee a healthy living
environment for the public. With a powerful new wave of public awareness of environmental issues,
MEP has steadily increased its capacity and support to public involvement.
The EGP is designed to support those efforts through facilitating policy development at the national
level and a series of practical demonstrations at the local level. This programme advises the central
government in drafting and implementing legislation related to public participation in environmental
monitoring and decision making, in public access to justice and in involving the business community
in environmental governance. Furthermore, the programme supports local partnership projects that
contribute to local sustainable development for the benefit of the people through local level public
participation and accountability.
Programme Objectives
The overall objective is to contribute to the efforts of the Chinese Government and
general public to improve environmental protection in China and promote local
sustainable development for the benefit of the people through public participation
and accountability in China.
1
Cooperation and Development Section ■ Delegation of the European Union to China and Mongolia
The Programme's core themes are:
Europe Aid
1. Public access to environmental information
2. Public participation in environmental information and decision making
3. Access to justice in environmental matters
4. Corporate environmental responsibility
The EGP employs a two component approach:

Component 1 focuses on demonstrations of best practice at the local level and is
implemented, via grant projects, by consortia of European and Chinese organisations.

Component 2 focuses on the national level and is implemented by a team composed of
Chinese and European experts, under the MEP Policy Research Center for Environment
and Economy.
Current Status
The programme is implementing its final annual work plan and is expected to complete in November
2015.
The national component (Component 2) is delivering a series of high impact activities, such as:
-
Providing expert inputs to:
o
National People’s Congress on the revision of the Environment Protection Law
o
Supreme People’s Court on the Judicial Interpretations on Environmental Public
Interest Litigation
o
National People’s Congress on the revision of the Air Pollution Prevention Law
o
State Council Development and Research Center on the role of NGOs in building
environmental rule of law under the new Environmental Protection Law
-
Dissemination of EU environmental policy documents, including the ‘Aarhus Convention
Implementation Guide’ and translation
-
Providing capacity building and public communications under the 4 programme themes with
about 30 activities and frequent media exposure
-
A comprehensive policy recommendation report, summarizing the key recommendations
emerging from this five year cooperation programme
The 15 local partnership projects (Component 1) started in late 2012, and most of them have been
completed by mid 2015. Various outcomes were achieved, including policy recommendations and
capacity building at the local level. Good examples of successful projects include those on air quality
modelling and forecasting, training of environmental judges and the establishment of environmental
tribunals, and the preparation of a number of handbooks for best practices regarding environmental
information disclosure, public participation, access to justice and corporate environmental
responsibility.
More information, including a knowledge base with all available results, can be found on the website:
www.ecegp.com
Last update: 26 May 2014
2