A seminar on ‘Harmful subsidies as barriers to sustainable development’ was organised by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) in Helsinki on 24 February. The seminar was opened by the Finnish Minster of Environment, Ville Niinistö. Sirini Withana, Senior Policy Analyst in IEEP’s Environment and Climate Governance Programme gave a presentation on ‘Reforming environmentally harmful subsidies in Europe: The way forward’, at the seminar. This presentation builds on a study carried out by IEEP in collaboration with IVM, Ecologic Institute and VITO for the European Commission in 2012 on phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies and a forthcoming book entitled ‘Paying the polluter – Environmentally Harmful Subsidies and their Reform’ edited by Frans Oosterhuis and Patrick ten Brink, to be published by Edward Elgar. 

The seminar brought together key policy-makers and stakeholders in Finland to discuss the findings of a new report by FANC on ‘Harmful subsidies as barriers to sustainable development: The price of subsidy policy in Finland and the developing world’. The seminar concluded with a panel discussion between six Finnish Parliamentarians on sustainable ways forward. The seminar will feed into on-going discussions in Finland on budget cuts with government proposals expected to be published in March. 

For more on the FANC report, please see: http://haitallisettuet.wordpress.com/briefly-in-english/