​The European Committee of the Regions' (CoR) Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE) held its 20th meeting on 27 September 2018 in Brussels. Members exchanged views with the Director General of DG Environment, Mr Calleja Crespo on the priorities for environment and climate action.

The EA coordinator Andrew Cooper, stressed the importance of implementation of EU environmental legislation as  " ultimately it's the local and regional authorities who are the implementers on the ground. There is a need to improve the coordination between the national, regional and local level of governance and ensure that local targets find their way into national plans and goals", he added.

During the meeting ENVE members also adopted unanimously the opinion on local energy communities in the energy transition and discussed about the single-use plastics directive, the LIFE programme after 2020, water reuse and the establishment of the European space programme.

A debate was held on the Global Covenant of Mayors and the role that the EU Covenant of Mayors.  Cllr Andrew Cooper pointed out that it is essential to ensure local energy and climate actions are integrated into national determined contributions and that United Nations are also involved in this initiative. The next ENVE meeting will take place on 15 November in Brussels.