J&E’s face in Austria is ÖKOBÃœRO – Koordinationsstelle österreichischer Umweltorganisationen. ÖKOBÃœRO lawyer Thomas Alge is J&E’s treasurer.

ÖKOBÃœRO is a platform of 15 Austrian environmental NGOs. There are national organizations such as Greenpeace CEE, WWF-Austria, GLOBAL 2000 – Friends of the Earth Austria, “FOUR PAWSâ€? Austria (”4 Pfoten”) and “VCOEâ€? plus 10 other national green NGOs among ÖKOBÃœRO´s members.

ÖKOBÜRO is a member of the EEB – European Environmental Bureau in Brussels.
ÖKOBÜRO actively encourages and promotes communication and information exchange as well as cooperation between its member organizations. One of its major working fields is environmental law. ÖKOBÜRO provides legal services to environmental NGOs and citizen groups via its “Environmental Law Service.� It provides expertise in law drafting processes and organizes conferences and seminars on legal topics like the Aarhus Convention and new EU legislation.

Cases
The majority of public concerned requests are about EIA-infrastructure projects (in particular federal motorways) as well as possible EIA-circumventions by salami slicing and expelling public concerned from EIA-screening (OEKOBUERO EIA information). OEKOBUERO has received requests from all Austrian regions (Bundesländer). Currently in many cases problems occur as to implementation of SEA and ambient air quality Directives. From case to case competent authorities are reluctant in providing information to the public. The Austrian Environmental information act has become a useful tool to purchase requested information, especially since the act was amended due to Aarhus-implementation.

Motorways toward CEE and around Vienna
A lot of cases requested to OEKOBUERO are located in the region of lower Austria (in and around Vienna). Many motorways are to be built in the next few years. The purpose for those plannings is to establish a motorway-ring around Vienna and to connect lower Austria to CEE countries. Though bearing in mind that connections to CEE are necessary, the political question is whether it makes sense to establish four to five high-level motorway connections in a small region for the same purpose as well as the question if it would make sense to think about other connections but motorways that would be less harmful to environment and health. The majority of the planned tracks are within air-quality low emission zone as air quality limit values are exceeded. Furthermore, there exists protected sites and endangered species. Some of the projects appear to be salami sliced for the purpose of meeting limit values that could not be met, if the whole project would be subject to EIA.

OEKOBUERO standing
OEKOBUERO has standing in the EIA-permit proceedings of one of the projects, motorway A5 Vienna-Brno. In the latter case OEKOBUERO cooperates with our J&E partner organization EPS as well as organizations like CEE Bankwatch network. Furthermore Justice&Environment and OEKOBUERO have been preparing a case study on the implementation of Austria EIA Directive and Aarhus convention. For that purpose the developments in lower Austria play a central role.

Newsflash
Next to pending cases OEKOBUERO published 2006 two Newsflash Enviornmental Law until July. Two more will follow in the next months. Newsflash April covered topics like Austrian and European ambient air quality legislation and implementation, information about environmental information legislation as well as implementation of SEA-Directive in Austria. Newsflash July covered implementation of environmental liability Directive, further and latest developments about ambient air legislation and implementation as well as information about J&E case studies on EIA-salami-slicing and expelling public from EIA-screening.

Ambient air
In June 2006 OEKOBUERO organized a conference about implementation of ambient-air quality Directives. On the agenda were not only recent developments on European level but especially the question of implementation and transposition the Directives in Austria. The amended Austrian ambient air act will make it easier to give permits also in low emissions zones, whereas abatement measures are hard to implement for legal reasons.

Environmental Liability
ÖKOBÜRO has been active in lobbying the implementation of the Environmental Liability Direcitve (ELD). For that purpose OEKOBUERO participated an EEB conference in Brussels in May 2006. A joint Austrian NGO-positions-paper by OEKOBUERO, J&E, FoE Austria, Greenpeace CEE, WWF Austria and others was submitted to the Austrian MoE in July 2006. In autumn 2006 OEKOBUERO organized an expert discussion with relevant stakeholders about ELD implementation in Austria.

Justice & Environment
In February 2006 OEKOBUERO hosted J&E kick-off meeting with regards to J&E workplan 2006 implementation. In June 2006 OEKOBUERO represented J&E at CEE Bankwatch AGM in Swinoujscie (PL) to discuss possible future cooperations. In June OEKOBUERO also attended J&E AGM in Wroclav. As mentioned above OEKOBUERO has been preparing case studies and legal analyses on EIA and Aarhus implementation for the purpose of J&E workplan implemenation 2006-2007.

CSR
In April 2006 OEKOBUERO hosted a workshop on CSR together with EPS. This workshop was part of an EPS CSR project which is implemented in 2006.