EUR-Lex Access to European Union law

Back to EUR-Lex homepage

This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website

Implementation and enforcement of Community environmental law (1996-1997)

1) OBJECTIVE

To report on progress with implementation of Community environmental law.

To increase awareness of Community environmental law in the Member States and to make implementation more transparent.

2) COMMUNITY MEASURES

Commission staff working paper of 27 April 1999: First annual survey on the implementation and enforcement of Community environmental law (October 1996 to December 1997).

3) CONTENTS

The Dublin European Council in June 1990 stressed that Community environmental legislation would only be effective if fully implemented and enforced by Member States.

In May 1996 the Commission and European Parliament held a joint public hearing entitled "Challenges to environmental protection: Making the legislation work".

Later in 1996 the Commission issued a communication on implementing Community environmental law [COM(96) 500 final] in which it recognised the need to provide up-to-date and reliable information on the state of application of Community environmental law in the Member States and an annual summary and overview of the progress of infringement proceedings against Member States for failing to implement Community directives.

Then, on 14 May 1997, in its resolution on the Commission's communication Parliament called on the Commission to produce and publicise an annual report on progress in adopting and implementing Community environmental law.

It is thus in response to the invitations of the Parliament and the Council that the Commission is now publishing this survey. It concentrates on follow-up actions from the Commission's communication of 1996, and on other specific horizontal actions, the work carried out by IMPEL for 1998 and details of Member States' transposing legislation.

The annual survey covers the period from October 1996 to December 1997. Subsequent annual surveys will cover the calendar year.

Follow-up action

The Commission has identified specific new areas for action with might assist in the implementation of environmental law. These are inspections by Member States, and access to courts and tribunals.

- Member States' inspection tasks

There is a wide disparity between Member States' environmental inspection activities. The Commission and the Council therefore envisaged a role for IMPEL in this context. (IMPEL was established in 1992 to promote the exchange of information and experience and the development of a greater consistency of approach to environmental legislation.) The involvement of IMPEL emphasises the Commission's intention to involve those with implementation and enforcement responsibilities in the Member States at an early stage of the legislative process.

- Access to courts and tribunals

The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development emphasised the importance of access to information and to justice in matters concerning the environment. It stated that Member States should encourage public awareness by making information widely available and that effective access to justice should be provided. This idea was echoed by the Parliament and the Council. The Commission decided to have two studies carried out, both in conjunction with IMPEL: one concerning non-judicial ways of solving conflicts, and the other concerning access to justice.

- Promoting knowledge of Community environmental law

The Commission is also keen to promote knowledge of Community environmental law, in particular through initiatives to increase awareness by judges, lawyers and officials of the Member States (by organising training courses and through a pilot teaching project).

- National sanctions

In its communication of 1996 the Commission emphasised the importance of appropriately deterrent sanctions for non-compliance with the requirements of the Directive. The Commission has taken this into account, for example in Council Regulation (CE) No 338/97 of 9 December 1996 on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora by regulating trade therein. The Regulation provides for a communication system between Member states to ensure uniform implementation of the Regulation.

In this connection, the Commission in calling upon IMPEL to look into the problem of sanctions, whether administrative, civil or criminal during 1999 with a view to guidelines being drawn up.

Other specific horizontal actions

Other specific horizontal action is designed to provide more information on the implementation of environmental law and to improve enforcement.

To this end Council Directive 90/313/EEC of 7 June 1990 is designed to ensure freedom of access to information and dissemination of information on the environment which is held by public authorities and to set out the basic terms and conditions on which such information should be available.

Council Directive 91/692/EEC sets out to standardise and rationalise reports on certain Directives relating to the environment.

The Commission has decided to publish a White Paper on environmental liability in order to examine and compare different ways of tackling the issue of environmental damage and in order to come up with practical proposals in this area.

The Commission is committed to ensuring that the transparency of its activities and to making available as much information on environmental matters as possible to the authorities in the Member States, industry, energy NGOs and the general public, by issuing specific publications from time to time. These publications are found on the Internet site of DG Environment.

IMPEL

Environmental legislation has grown considerably in recent times. The Member States are concerned about the comparability of rules on enforcement in the different countries. Following an initiative by the Netherlands, the "Chester Network" was established during the United Kingdom's presidency in 1992, responsible for the implementation and enforcement of environmental law.

The Community's Fifth Environmental Action Programme called for a body similar to the Chester Network, which resulted in the creation of the IMPEL Network.

IMPEL, the "European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law" is therefore a useful informal instrument for the improvement of implementation, inspection and enforcement of legislation through:

  • exchange of information and experiences on different administrative levels;
  • training of inspectors and in-depth discussions on environmental issues.

Legislation of Member States

Timely and correct transposition is crucial to the application of Community Directives. In order to achieve maximum transparency in the implementation of Community environmental law, it is intended that an annual survey will be published including details of Member States' transposing legislation communicated for Directives which have to be transposed during the period covered by the survey.

Fifteenth annual report on monitoring the implementation of Community environmental law

The Community monitors implementation of Community environmental law on the basis of Article 211 of the Treaty (ex-Article 155), in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 226 of the Treaty (ex-Article 169).

In practical terms this entails checking that transposal measures are notified by the Member States and that they implement Directives properly, and monitoring the application of regulations.

Monitoring is carried out either as a matter of course, or following complaints, questions from Members of Parliament and petitions received by Parliament. In 1997, in exercising these duties, the Commission referred 37 cases to the European Court of Justice and sent 69 reasoned opinions to the Member States.

However, referring cases to court is only the closing stage in infringement proceedings. Before reaching that stage, many cases are terminated, usually after a warning letter is sent.

The Fifteenth Annual Report, which is in Annex 2 to this first annual survey, reports on application of Community law in the various sectors concerned: air, chemicals and biotechnology, water, noise, waste, nature and radiation protection.

4) deadline for implementation of the legislation in the member states

Not applicable

5) date of entry into force (if different from the above)

6) references

Commission staff working paper SEC(99) 592 finalNot published in the Official Journal

7) follow-up work

8) commission implementing measures

Top