Report of the first meeting of the European Environment and Health Ministerial Board

Paris, France, 4-5 May 2011

The European Environment and Health Ministerial Board (EEHMB) was created by the Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health (Parma, Italy, 2010) to provide leadership and guidance on refining the priorities for action identified in Parma and on monitoring of actions assuring accountability in respect to the Parma conference commitments.

The first Board session agreed on the rules and procedures of the EEHMB work, ensuring full transparency and accountability of the Board to Member States, and discussed the next steps of the European environment and health process. In this context, it emphasized the need for clarification of process priorities, of its links to existing multilateral environmental agreements and of the contribution of the European process to the sustainable development agenda. The Board also considered approaches and tools for monitoring the Parma follow-up as well as the progress in the establishment of the Environment and Health Task Force.