Interim director to take over at European Environment Agency

NEWS RELEASE

Copenhagen, 17 May 2002

Interim director to take over at European Environment Agency

Gordon McInnes, the most senior manager at the European Environment Agency, will become acting Executive Director of the Agency on 1 June. The EEA is the main European-level provider of environmental information to policy makers and the public.

Mr McInnes, 50, will take over in a temporary capacity from Domingo Jiménez-Beltrán, Executive Director since the EEA became operational in mid-1994, until a permanent successor is appointed. Mr Jiménez-Beltrán is leaving the Agency at the end of May at his own request.

The EEA's Management Board welcomed today that Mr McInnes, as the Agency's second in command, will exercise the functions of Executive Director temporarily from 1 June.

A British scientist with 25 years' experience of air pollution issues, Mr McInnes has been with the EEA since it started operations nearly eight years ago. He was a member of the task force that prepared the Agency's organisation and work programme before it was set up.

As head of the EEA's Reporting and Networking Coordination department, Mr McInnes has been responsible in particular for coordinating the development of the Agency's information network, or EIONET, and of its Topic Centres (centres of thematic expertise). He also led a major internal reorganisation of the EEA completed last year.

Mr McInnes's curriculum vitae is attached in Annex.

Notes for Editors

At its meeting on 14-15 March 2002, the Management Board interviewed candidates for the post of Executive Director proposed by the European Commission, in accordance with the EU Regulation governing the Agency. However, no candidate obtained the support of the two-thirds majority of the Board required for appointment.

The Board therefore asked the Commission to submit a new shortlist of candidates for its consideration at the earliest opportunity. It requested the publication of a new call for applications for the post of Executive Director, based on broader criteria, in a wider range of printed and electronic media.

About the EEA

The European Environment Agency is the main source of information used by the European Union and its Member States in developing environment policies. The Agency aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy-making agents and the public. Established by the EU in 1990 and operational in Copenhagen since 1994, the EEA is the hub of the European environment information and observation network (EIONET), a network of some 600 bodies across Europe through which it both collects and disseminates environment-related data and information.

The Agency, which is open to all nations that share its objectives, currently has 29 member countries. These are the 15 EU Member States; Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, which are members of the European Economic Area; and 11 of the 13 countries in central and eastern Europe and the Mediterranean area that are seeking accession to the EU -- Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. Their membership makes the EEA the first EU body to take in the candidate countries. It is anticipated that the two remaining candidate countries, Poland and Turkey, will ratify their membership agreements within the next few months. This will take the Agency's membership to 31 countries. Negotiations with Switzerland on membership are also under way.

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