Institute For European Environmental Policy - History

History

IEEP was originally established in Bonn in 1976 by the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). Its first director was Konrad von Moltke who believed that an institute in Bonn, whatever it was called, would be seen as a German institute, and that to be truly European it was necessary to have a presence in several European countries. So he opened an IEEP office in Paris in 1978 and in London in 1980. Konrad established a monthly bulletin initially in French and then also in English called ‘The Environment in Europe’. This continued for about ten years and was sent to MPs and MEPs, Committees of parliaments that were beginning to take an interest in this new subject of environmental policy, as well as to ministries.

The London office was initially run as a joint venture with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) that had been founded by Barbara Ward. The IEEP ‘office’ consisted of a desk at their premises at Percy Street, then occupied by twenty or so people, including the fledgling Earthscan. IEEP London’s first director was Nigel Haigh who stayed until 1998. Four projects were planned in the first six months, one of which had to be postponed and modified. They are worth describing as they point to the future.
They were:
- a comparison of public enquiries in Britain and France
- a study of the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy on wetland drainage in France, Britain, Netherlands and Ireland
- a critique of a European freight forecasting study, and
- an extended essay on the impact of EEC environmental legislation in the UK

Over time structural and financial problems appeared. The head office was in Bonn; the accounts were kept by ECF in Amsterdam in florins but were often so late that they provided little basis for financial management; there were staff in four countries on the payroll of different organisations. The IEEP Board responded by initiating two debates between staff and Board, one about the purpose of IEEP, and the other about its structure. The current director David Baldock took over the running of the London office in 1998. The Brussels office was opened in 2001 as the importance of being close to the EU power structures was realised.