Background report to the preparation of the Impact assessment on the EU adaptation strategy – Part II (Stakeholder Involvement)

For complex and socially relevant issues - such as climate change adaptation - a broad discourse with stakeholders is important for the policy - making process to enhance its quality of the content and the implementation success. Thus, stakeholder involvement with the aim to raise awareness, provide relevant information and gather expectations and needs are important elements in the development process of the EU Adaptation Strategy.
From January 2012 to the end of October 2012, stakeholder involvement activities to support the development of the EU Adaptation Strategy were carried out on two levels: (i) stakeholder involvement with different Commission Services, Member States, private sector and stakeholders for specific themes and (ii) public consultation via the online consultation on ‘Your Voice in Europe’. To involve the broader public, a public consultation was carried out by DG CLIMA with the objective to collect opinions from stakeholders and experts in the field of adaptation to climate change. The “Consultation on the preparation of the EU Adaptation Strategy” was open from 21.05.2012 – 20.08.2012 on the website “Your Voice in Europe”.
Every single activity was documented to secure the transparency of the stakeholder involvement processes and enhance the usability of key results to be included in the EU Adaptation Strategy (and accompanying documents) by using a common structure. Meetings and formats used for stakeholder involvement as well as results gained from the public consultation are described in detail in chapters 3 and 4.