Green Customs Workshop for Europe & Central Asia, Budapest, Hungary, 14 - 16 October, 2009

The concluding address for the Green Customs Workshop was made by Dr Peter Oszko from the Hungarian Ministry of Finance.

Some 55 representatives of Customs and environment authorities from 20 European and Central Asian countries, as well as China, European Community, Russian Federation, participated in the first regional enforcement network meeting in the region related to the Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The project aims to enable the participating countries to gain better control over their import and export of ODS including HCFCs, and thereby maintain compliance with their ODS consumption targets

This meeting was followed by a regional Green Customs workshop raising awareness on other Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), such as:

This regional Green Customs workshop provided the opportunity for representatives from the Green Customs partners which comprise the secretariats of the relevant multilateral environmental agreements (Basel, Cartagena, CITES, Montreal, Rotterdam Stockholm), and Interpol, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, UNEP, the United Nations office of Drugs and crime (UNODC) and the World Customs Organization to introduce their organisations and explain respective roles and responsibilities of customs and enforcements agencies in implement. Some detailed training was provided on identification techniques related to items in trade covered by the CITES convention. The workshop enabled discussion between the participating countries to identify experiences and major obstacles to implementation and enforcing MEAs in the region and to consider the main local and regional solutions that are needed. There were also working group sessions which facilitated discussion of how such awareness raising and training on Green Customs and implementation of MEAs could be incorporated at the national level.

Additional participants from Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan participated in the Budapest meetings and they will be the resource persons for national Green Customs seminars to be conducted by both countries on their own and in local language. UNEP invites two more countries to designate additional participants in the planned meetings in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in 2010.