Europe to improve green law implementation

2660, 18/11/08

The European Commission has unveiled a plan to improve the implementation of around 200 environmental laws in areas such as waste management, air pollution and nature protection. 

The plan is part of a broader strategy to improve EU law implementation announced last year.  In the strategy, the commission said it would pay more attention to implementation and enforcement issues when drafting new legislation (EED 05/09/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=23802).  

On Tuesday, the commission announced it would try to prevent breaches of EU environment law through better regulation, increase cooperation with member states and focus on "fundamental or systematic" infringements.      

"We must ensure that Europe actually puts into practice the environmental measures that have been agreed", said EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.  "This includes preparing high quality laws that take implementation aspects fully into account".

Most serious implementation problems include illegal landfills (EED 08/02/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=24807) and failures to meet urban wastewater treatment standards (EED 15/09/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=26145), the commission said.  Other areas with a particularly high number breaches are nature protection, industrial pollution, environmental impact assessment rules and air quality standards.      

Infringements are generally due to "insufficient attention to deadlines", poor knowledge of environmental law in public administrations and "weak" enforcement policies and practices.   

To encourage greater implementation across Europe the commission will publish more legal compliance studies such as its annual bathing water quality report (EED 02/06/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=25543), and issue scoreboards comparing member state performance in specific areas.

EU environmental law would be "better and more consistently enforced" if a draft directive to implement the access to justice pillar of the 1998 Arhus convention on public involvement in environmental decision-making was adopted, the commission says. 

Discussions on the draft law stalled because of hesitation by some governments over its provisions (EED 16/06/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=25642; EED 28/09/06 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=21733). Adopting the law would "make it easier to bring cases before a national judge" and "should also reduce the need for commission intervention", said the EU executive.    

Follow-up: European commission http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm, tel: +32 2 299 1111, plus a press release

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1726&format=HTML, policy paper

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/law/pdf/com_2008_773_en.pdf and infringements webpage

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/law/index.htm.

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