From October 18-20th 2013 the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) invited its member organizations to an Annual Conference and to its General Assembly (GA) which took place in Brussels. The EEB is an umbrella organization of Environmental Citizens Organisations.

On Friday, the Conference called "ECONOMIC CRISIS, ENVIRONMENTAL OPPORTUNITY: THE PATH TO A GREENER EUROPE" started, filling the Salle de Trônes in the Palais des Académies with representatives from NGOs, the media as well as politicians. The Conference was opened by Mikael Karlsson, President of EEB. Afterwards, there were four modules with lectures and time for questions from the audience about the following subjects: "How to accelerate the green transition in a resource-challenged continent", "Promoting EU climate and energy policies that respect climate science", "Financing the transition to sustainability", and "Getting the governance framework right". Janez Potočnik, EU Environment Commissioner, was one of the lecturers of the first module.

On Saturday and Sunday, about 60 representatives from various NGOs all over Europe met to make the most important decisions for the EEB for the upcoming year, such as work plan, new board, and amendment of statutes. The GA decided to expand the geographical borders and also give NGOs from countries such as, for example, Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus the opportunity to get full membership. However, the focus on EU policies will remain. In addition to that the question was raised whether not to develop criteria for membership instead of political borders as criteria. The board received the mandate to work on those criteria for the upcoming year.

Furthermore, there were discussions about changing the name of the EEB, but as no convincing alternative was suggested, the change of name was not approved by the GA.

This meeting was very interesting, because for the first time I represented YEE on a larger scale. I met many interesting and highly involved people from all over Europe. I gained insight of EU-lobbying, which motivated me a lot to think about YEE's role in politics. Moreover, I met a few environmental NGOs that also provide educational and youth actions, so that we can hopefully find new partners, member organizations or partners for cooperation in the future.

Anja Wilken
YEE Chairperson