A history of IEEP
Establishing a presence in Europe
IEEP was founded in Bonn in 1976 by the European Cultural Foundation. Its first director was Konrad von Moltke who believed that an institute in Bonn would be seen as a German institute, and that to be truly European it was necessary to have a presence in several European countries. 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
The London office was initially run as a joint venture with the International Institute for Environment and Development 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 that were planned in the first six months are worth naming because they point to the future:
- a comparison of public enquiries in Britain and France
- a study of the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 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
The current director David Baldock took over the running of the
London office in 1998. In 2001 the Brussels office was opened to be near the
EU power structures and have a clear presence in continental Europe.