Report on actions to streamline environmental reporting

We all want to know if the air we breathe and the water we drink are healthy or if our beaches and lakes are clean. The European public has a right to know about the quality of the local natural environment and whether EU actions deliver improvements.

Knowing this means managing information flows. Information at the European level usually starts locally: environmental monitoring of air pollution, the state of nature, water quality, etc. is all about seeing what is happening to the environment ‘on the ground.’ Some of this information is then reported to the EU level and to the public. At European level it is used for regulatory monitoring to check if the regulation is effectively meeting its objectives.

Some environmental reports are very popular. The annual EU bathing water report attracts attention from around Europe, with the online information provided by the European Environment Agency (EEA) accessed over 73,000 times in 2016. Some other reports published by the Commission remain largely unnoticed by the wider public yet fulfil an important purpose for regulatory monitoring of the application of EU law.

Reporting on policies and the environment provides essential facts and information for informed decision-making. Indeed, reporting is key to the cycle of analysis, dialogue and collaboration that takes place for the environment implementation review. But reporting leads to costs for Member States and businesses so there is an equilibrium that needs to be managed between the demand for better information and the cost of providing it. That is why the May 2015 better regulation package launched a broad review of reporting requirements, including for the environment, in the form of a fitness check focused on reporting and regulatory monitoring.

This report presents the resulting action plan to ensure that EU environmental law is delivering its intended effects on the ground. The purpose is to better inform the European public about these achievements and at the same time simplify the reporting burden for national administrations and businesses.

Environmental Reporting Initiative

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: SWD(2017)230: Fitness check of reporting and monitoring of EU environment policy http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2017:230:FIN

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Briefing: Implementation Appraisal, May 2018: Environmental Reporting Initiative. Streamlining environmental reporting and monitoring http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/615682/EPRS_BRI(2018)615682_EN.pdf

---