PURPOSE: to align the EU reporting obligations in the
field of environment policy.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European
Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative
procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: in June 2017, the Commission published a
comprehensive fitness
check evaluation on reporting and monitoring of EU environment
policy and drew up an action plan. This evaluation covered 181
reporting obligations found in 58 pieces of EU environmental
legislation.
It was found that there is room for improvement
on some cross-cutting issues (such as streamlining for a process
that is more similar in all Member States) and for specific pieces
of legislation:
- Directive
2002/49/EC (Environment Noise Directive);
- Directive
2004/35/EC (Environment Liability Directive - ELD);
- Directive 2007/2/EC (INSPIRE Directive) -
Infrastructure for spatial information;
- Directives 2009/147/EC and 92/43/EEC (i.e. Birds and
Habitats Directive);
- Directive 2010/63/EC (Animal Testing
Directive);
- Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 (European Pollutant
Release and Transfer Register Regulation (E-PRTR));
- Regulation (EU) No 995/2010 (Timber
Regulation);
- Council Regulation (EC) No 338/97 (CITES);
- Council Regulation (EC) No 2173/2005 (FLEGT
Regulation).
Issues addressed in the proposal are as
follows:
- the relevance and need for certain reporting
obligations is no longer clear;
- the timing and frequency for reporting obligations
does not meet major policy cycle needs;
- the extending of access to information and the sharing
with the public;
- the roles of the Commission and European agencies are
not always clear and explicit;
- aligning the content, timing and procedures with the
evaluation cycle under the Better Regulation agenda. The proposal
is therefore designed for the purpose of regulatory fitness and
simplification.
CONTENT: this proposal for revision of several
existing legislative acts falls under the Commissions
Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT). The
objectives of this alignment proposal are: (i) to
improve the evidence base for the implementation of EU
environmental policy; (ii) to increase transparency for the public
and; (iii) to simplify reporting in order to reduce the
administrative burden.
The proposal has been developed with a view to
ensuring a coherent approach across the different legislative acts,
as appropriate:
- improving transparency and subsidiarity (in 8
legal acts);
- aligning the timing of reporting (in 3 legal
acts);
- clarifying the role that the Commission and, in some
cases, the European Environment Agency plays in the reporting
processes (in 8 legal acts);
- providing factual data for
future evaluations (in 5 legal acts).