Controversy dogs plan to extend EIAs

Date: 18/04/1996

By Michael Mann

EUROPEAN Commission officials are optimistic that proposals to extend Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) to strategic planning decisions could be ready for adoption by the summer.

Dismissing rumours that the plans have been shelved, officials within the Commission's environment directorate-general (DGXI) say their proposals are currently being amended to take account of the views of other departments and they are “optimistic that something could be ready by about July”.

But some member state officials have expressed surprise at such optimism, suggesting that this type of potentially controversial proposal is likely to have a rocky passage through the institutional process. “No one is talking seriously about anything arriving soon. Some Commission experts have a tendency to be over optimistic,” said one.

The Commission has, for a number of years, been examining the possibility of extending the EIA rules by applying them earlier in the planning procedure. Current rules only require an EIA to be carried out on individual projects and only in certain circumstances.

Many 'green' lobbyists are sceptical about the way the current scheme operates, claiming that authorities often conduct EIAs in such a way that, whatever the result, they are not forced to alter their plans. “The political reality is that many politicians do not want green lobbies involved at an earlier stage of the proceedings,” commented one lobbyist.

DGXI has proposed extending the system to require an assessment of potential environmental effects of entire projects at the initial planning stage.

This would mean, for example, that instead of simply conducting an EIA on an individual stretch of road, regional or national authorities would have to take account of the impact on the environment of entire road building projects.

Already, several member states require overall development plans to be drawn up, such as the 'town and country plans' which have become the norm in the UK.

The draft legislation under consideration would require an additional environmental element to be built into these plans. A paper sent to environmental groups for consultation last year suggested the new rules should cover agriculture and forestry, industry, energy, transport and tourism projects, water resources and waste management or “any town and country planning or land use strategies not falling” within these categories.

But it left it up to member states to judge whether the project in question was “likely to have environmentally significant effects”, and gave considerable leeway for exemptions where similar goals could be achieved in other ways.

As distinct from EIAs, the new type of assessment would be described as SEAs (strategic environmental assessments). But officials stress that these are quite different from the SEA proposals currently being jointly prepared by DGXI and DGVII (responsible for transport) for environmental surveys into the effects of the Trans-European Networks.

Campaigners at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) stress the idea of SEAs fits in with the goal of the Commission's Fifth Action Programme on the Environment, which encouraged bringing 'green' concerns into all areas of policy.

In its response to the Commission's paper, Birdlife International welcomed the commitment to a greater consideration of environmental concerns. But it urged the Commission to go further, calling for plans relating to regional development and to wetland, coastal and marine environments to be specifically covered by the new legislation.

Some EU member states, such as Denmark, which already have similar national legislation on EIAs are likely to be sympathetic to the plan drawn up by DGXI. But officials suggest the proposals may run into severe difficulties before they even reach the Council of Ministers.

One suggested the idea might run contrary to the principle of subsidiarity, while another indicated that other Commission departments such as DGVI (agriculture) or DGXVI (regional policy) might have problems with the concept.