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On 28 September 2022, UNECE and the European Commission, DG Environment, together the EU members of the Convention’s Bureau (Austria, Finland, France, Slovenia) and the Convention’s Chair (Norway), co-organized an awareness-raising meeting on the UNECE Industrial Accidents Convention and its linkages with EU policies and legislation. This meeting was attended by representatives from several Directorate-Generals, incl. DG ECHO, DG ENV, DG HOME, DG INTPA, DG NEAR, as well as the Delegation of the European Union to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva – in addition to the EU member States of the Bureau, the Chair and the secretariat. 

The meeting emphasised the importance of the cooperation between the UNECE Industrial Accidents Convention and the EU, which is a Party to it along with 25 of its Member States, and opportunities to strengthen cooperation and engagement, given the strong linkages between the Convention's work and EU policies and legislation. The meeting served to identify several opportunities for synergies and further cooperation between the EU and the Convention, . in order to raise policy awareness of the linkages, pursue mutual exchange of information, best practices and lessons learned, and to explore opportunities to provide capacity development and policy-oriented assistance to countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.