Foreword

The principal aim of the OECD Environmental Performance Review programme is to help member and selected partner countries improve their individual and collective performance in environmental management by:

  • helping individual governments assess progress in achieving their environmental goals

  • promoting continuous policy dialogue and peer learning

  • stimulating greater accountability from governments towards each other and public opinion.

This report reviews the environmental performance of the Czech Republic since the previous review in 2005. Progress in achieving domestic objectives and international commitments provides the basis for assessing the country’s environmental performance. Such objectives and commitments may be broad aims, qualitative goals or quantitative targets. A distinction is made between intentions, actions and results. Assessment of environmental performance is also placed within the context of the Czech Republic’s historical environmental record, present state of the environment, physical endowment in natural resources, economic conditions and demographic trends.

The OECD is indebted to the government of the Czech Republic for its co-operation in providing information, for the organisation of the review mission to Prague and Litoměřice (12-16 June 2017), and for facilitating contacts both inside and outside government institutions.

Thanks are also due to the representatives of the two examining countries, Herman Huisman (Netherlands) and Björn Svensby (Sweden).

The authors of this report were Oscar Huerta Melchor, Myriam Linster, Alexa Piccolo, Sarah Sentier and Frédérique Zegel from the OECD Secretariat. Nathalie Girouard and Frédérique Zegel provided oversight and guidance. Sarah Sentier provided statistical support, Mika Hosokawa, Annette Hardcastle and Natasha Cline-Thomas provided administrative and editorial support, and Rebecca Brite copy-edited the report. Preparation of this report also benefited from inputs and comments from several members of the OECD Secretariat, including Rudiger Ahrend, Peter Börkey, Kurt Van Dender, Luisa Dressler, Jane Ellis, Guillaume Gruère, Alvaro Pereira, Soňa Perglerová and Mikaela Rambali, as well as Sylvia Beyer of the International Energy Agency.

The OECD Working Party on Environmental Performance discussed the draft Environmental Performance Review of the Czech Republic at its meeting on 14 February 2018 in Paris, and approved the Assessment and Recommendations.