The Council of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Sustainable Development (hereinafter referred as „Council“) was established in January 1999 by the Resolution of the Slovak Government. The Council is an advisory and coordinating body of the Slovak Government in implementation of the principles of sustainable development and evaluation of indicators of sustainable development at national level.

• to co-ordinate the activities of ministries and other central administration bodies and regional authorities in implementation of Agenda 21;

• to evaluate the links between strategies, policies and sectional and regional programmes from the environmental, economic and social points of view;

• to negotiate the results of assessment of basic developmental policies, in particular in sectors of energy, mining, industry, transport, agriculture, forestry, water management, waste management and tourism, as well as spatial planning documentation for larger parts of territory;

• to negotiate the draft generally binding regulations, which can have adverse impacts on the environment;

• to assist the Slovak Government in implementation of Agenda 21 and principles of sustainable development and in this manner to create conditions for integration of the Slovak Republic in the European and global structures;

• to co-ordinate the activities of Slovakia in relation to the UN Commission for Sustainable Development and other UN agencies.

The Council is chaired by the vice-prime minister for Human Rights and Regional Development and involves other relevant ministers and heads of state administration bodies. Besides them the Council also involves representatives of regional offices, statutory representatives of relevant scientific and social organisations and associations of citizens oriented towards sustainable development.

In certain cases, where appropriate, the Council can establish a working group for attaining effective activities of the Council and for solution of selected current issues related to sustainable development.

The Council has the permanent secretariat, providing administration, technical and organisations the Council activities. The secretariat is managed by secretary of the Council.

Regular meetings of the Council are held twice a year but in specific occasion it is possible to arrange meeting more frequenlty.

In the schedule of the regular meetings of the Council following issues have been discussed:

Principles of environmental policy in the Slovak republic, Environmental information system, the Concept of energy policy in the SR, Information on up-dated Act on waste-draft, the concept for decentralisation and modernisation of public administration and Integration plan of regional and social development, Agriculture policy until 2005 concept-draft, the Concept of forestry policy until 2005, the Concept of a New method of financing- environmental protection-draft.

At its last meeting the Council also took due notice of information of the project realisation “Capacity Building for Sustainable Development in the Slovak Republic”. The project is mainly directed to elaboration of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development. Some members of the Council are also members of the Strategy Steering Committee. This strategy will be followed by Action Plan for implementation of Strategy defining concrete measures for implementation of sustainable development the objectives and priorities. The project is funded by UNDP, implemented by the Regional Environmental Centre Slovakia and supervised by Ministry of the Environment.