The 29th IMPEL General Assembly (GA) took place online, hosted by Hungary on 27-29 November 2024. The Network welcomed two new National Coordinators (NCs) from Hungary and Romania. The NCs are the focal points for the Network in each country and coordinate the contributions of members in the network.
The Network was very pleased to approve a new member of IMPEL, from the Austrian City of Linz. This takes the membership to 57 organisations from 38 countries.
Vita Jukne from DG Environment gave an overview of the key policy developments at the European level. The GA was updated on the external activities of the Board, open days are planned early in 2025 as well as incentivising visits to member countries. The network from the partner networks, EUFJE, EnviCrimeNet and EPA network, with a video update from INECE and written update from ENPE.
A new overview video was presented for the IMPEL network that can be seen on the website here: https://www.impel.eu/en/our-network/strategy-and-goal
There were changes in the leadership for two of the Expert Teams (ET), Francesco Andreotti was approved to replace Martine Blondeel as ET Leader and Martine Blondeel approved to replace Francesco Andreotti as Deputy ET Leader for the Cross cutting tools and approaches ET and Elisabete Santos replaces Alfred Dreijer as the Nature ET leader.
The GA was informed about completed project activities. The Shipment of Waste Enforcement Actions Project (SWEAP) has now been completed. The project has been very successful with 150 customs officers trained and 45,000 coordinated inspections carried out. A video on the project can be seen here: https://www.sweap.eu/life-sweap-video-published/
The following project reports were approved:
- IRI Luxemburg final report
- IRI Basque Country final report
- CAED updated tables and guide
- IMPEL for sustainability final report
- Final report - Analysis and recommendations on article 6(3) Habitat Directive - Environmental Controls on (Intensive) Farms
- Final report - Improving air quality final report
- Final report - Lessons Learnt from Industrial Accidents was approved
More details on these projects will follow online shortly.
The next GA will be a physical meeting under the Polish EU presidency in June 2025.