The Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Miguel Arias Cañete, inaugurated today, at the Royal Botanical Garden/CSIC in Madrid, the conference “Spain on the way to ‘Rio+20’, a meeting of Civil Society”, preparatory to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – known as “Rio+20” – a key environmental summit that will take place in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) between 20 and 22 June.

This meeting provides a space for dialogue between civil society and opens a channel of communication with the Ministry to know the opinion and ideas of the organizations and integrate them, as far as possible, into the position of Spain and the European Union.

The participation of more than 120 representatives of civil society sectors such as companies, trade unions, NGOs, Public Administrations or research centres is expected.

After the intervention of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment on the status of the international preparatory negotiations, the main civil society initiatives that are being developed in this “Rio+20” process were presented.

The conference was structured around two participatory workshops on the themes of the conference: green economy and government for sustainable development. It is a space for organisations to present the visions they want to convey to the Spanish Administration, with a view to the final process of negotiations.