The proposed regulation affects ten legislative acts. By simplifying the existing reporting obligations, it will help reduce administrative costs, improve the quality of available data for future evaluations and increase transparency.
We all agree on the need to simplify legislation. Today we are not only improving environmental legislation, we are also making it easier for our national administrations to send data to Brussels. I am happy to report that there was broad support among member states for taking this opportunity to cut down on the administrative costs related to a total of ten EU environmental laws. - Elisabeth Köstinger, Austrian federal minister of sustainability and tourism
The regulation groups together in one proposal amendments which will apply to the following ten legislative acts:
- the sewage sludge directive 86/278/EEC;
- the noise directive 2002/49/EC;
- the environmental liability directive with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage 2004/35/EC;
- the infrastructure for spatial information in the European Community (INSPIRE) directive 2007/2/EC;
- the birds' directive 2009/147/EC;
- the European pollutant release and transfer register (E-PRTR) regulation (EC) No 166/2006;
- the animal testing directive 2010/63/EC;
- the EU timber regulation (EU) No 995/2010;
- the forest law enforcement, governance and trade (FLEGT) regulation (EC) No 2173/2005;
- the convention on the international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) regulation (EC) 338/97.
In its position, the Council was more specific than the Commission on some of the reporting deadlines and intervals, as well as on the content of environmental information which member states are required to collect and report to the Commission. These changes will further help reduce administrative costs.
Member states did not support the proposed changes to the directive on environmental liability. This is because these changes go beyond the scope of reporting, would cause additional administrative burden and moreover because a comprehensive impact assessment is lacking. The related text was therefore deleted.
Background and next steps
The regulation was presented by the European Commission on 31 May 2018. It is based on the findings of the Fitness Check evaluation on the reporting and monitoring of EU environment policy which the Commission finalized in June 2017. Today's agreement follows intensive discussions at working level within the Council.
The Austrian Presidency can now begin negotiations with the European Parliament, which adopted its position on the regulation on 23 October 2018. A first meeting is scheduled for 15 November.
