EA legislation and practice in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR: A comparative analysis

The paper describes the main directions and the outcomes of the reform of EA legislation in practice in 27 former socialist countries in the 1990s. During this period, more than 100 legal acts in the field of EA have been introduced and EA has become one of the most widely used environmetal policy tools. The process of political and economic transition has significantly influenced the evolution of and the regional variations in EA systems especially in relation to the area of application of EA procedures, the roles of key actors, the scope of EA studies and the links of EA to decision-making. An effective EA reform should be sensitive to specific needs of the transitional societies and sensitive to their unique societal context.