Review article

European Environment and Health Process and its impact on the Environmental Health Policy in Croatia

GORANKA PETROVIĆ ; Environmental Health Service, Croatian National Institute of Public Health, Rockefellerova 7, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
KRUNOSLAV CAPAK ; Environmental Health Service, Croatian National Institute of Public Health, Rockefellerova 7, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Raising awareness of the importance of environment for human health resulted in several initiatives such as European Environment and Health Process and Environment for Europe Process. However, they should not be confused with the environmental health acquis requirements deriving from a large number of EU Directives or Council Regulations in which important aspects of protection of environment and human health are incorporated. In 2003 the European Commission adopted the European Environment and
Health Strategy, which soon was followed by EU European Environment and Health Action Plan 2004-2010 as an additional complementary system to the existing EU Directives. On the other hand, National Environmental Health Action Plans were developed on the basis of the Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe within the European Environment and Health Process, as a tool to assist individual country in evaluating and improving the environmental health management system, but with no legal binding at all.
By reviewing the existing legal framework and policy documents, as well as by investigating available instruments and capacity for the implementation and evaluation of environmental health policy in Croatia, the actual »diagnosis and prognosis« of Croatian environmental health was assessed in this paper. As an EU accession country, Croatian first priority is to fully harmonize its legislation with all EU directives concerning environmental health, as a prerequisite for establishing relevant and highly operational system
of environmental health characterized by high level of mutisectoral and interdisciplinary cooperation at different levels.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

35954

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/35954

Publication date:

31.3.2009.

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