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Single country profile

  Spain

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Basic information

Year of approval of the
SD strategy and updates

The NSDS was adopted by the Council of Ministers in November 2007. It was developed within the framework of the renewed EU-SDS by the Inter-ministerial Group for the Spanish NSDS under the coordination of the Economic Department of the Prime Minister’s Office with the participation of other ministries.

Type of SD strategy

NSDS covers all three dimensions of SD.

Lead ministry/institution in
the SD strategy process

Ministry of Environment

Link to the SD strategy
document

Spanish Sustainable Development Strategy (2007)

Further information about
the SD strategy process

N/A

 

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Mechanisms of Vertical Integration

National — sub-national linkages

The first draft of the NSDS (prepared by a working group consisting of all government ministries) was distributed to the regional authorities for comments and feedback. Moreover, the NSDS was discussed with regional representatives in the so-called ‘sectorial conferences’ in which the national and regional level discuss sectoral policy issues.

Regional representatives were also invited and participated in the ‘Conference on Sustainable Development’ which was held in July 2007. Several stakeholder groups participated and discussed in working groups various dimensions of the NSDS. Many comments were received during this conference which were than included in the NSDS.

Every sectoral policy is coordinated by the national government. There is also coordination between the national and regional level – agreements are signed in those areas for which the regions have implementation responsibilities. The main concern here is to include environmental issues in sectoral policies.

So far, no formal body for the coordination between the national and sub-national level has been established (there is no National Council for SD).

Several regions have developed their own regional SD strategies, some well before the NSDS was approved. Generally, regions draw up their SD strategies independently. Currently, four regional SD strategies are approved: País Vasco, Castilla y León, Andalucía and Galicia. Some others are already under discussion: La Rioja, Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha and Cataluña. Regions mainly include their own particular circumstances in these strategies. However, they now need to take into account the NSDS as well as the EU SDS objectives.

EU linkages

The renewed EU Strategy for Sustainable Development (EU SDS) that was adopted in June 2006 foresees that Member States bi-annually report about how they address the priorities of the EU SDS. Spain has published its first national report on implementing the EU SDS in July 2007.

 

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Mechanisms of Horizontal Integration

The Spanish NSDS was elaborated through the coordination of all Government ministries led by the Inter-Ministerial Commission for the Coordination of the NSDS.

 

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Evaluation and Review

Recently, the integrated assessment of the Spanish NSDS of 2007 (undertaken by the Spanish Observatory for Sustainable Development) has been published in English. It can be downloaded here.

 

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Indicators and Monitoring

The NSDS explicitly state a set of 74 indicators for its monitoring.

 

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Participation

Public participation in the preparation of the NSDS was mainly organised in the form of the ‘Conference on Sustainable Development’ that was convened within the CAMA (Environmental Advisory Council), which is made up of 18 organisations representing civil society. The conference took place on three days in July 2007.

So far, there is no National Council for Sustainable Development in Spain.

For a detailed documentation of all advisory and participatory councils (for SD and/or the environment) in this country, please go to the EEAC website at http://www.eeac-net.org/bodies/spain/sp_frame.htm and click on one of the listed institutions.

 

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Sub-national activities

[No information available]

 

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This Country Profile has been last updated on: Tuesday, 31 March 2009

For the sources used in the country profiles, please click here.

 

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