Effective multi-level environmental governance for a better implementation of EU environment legislation

The Environmental Implementation Review (EIR), launched by the European Commission in May 2016, aimed to increase knowledge on the implementation of EU environmental law and support more effective implementation in the Member States.

In the context of the EIR, in February 2017 the European Commission published a Communication identifying common challenges across Member States and common underlying root causes for poor implementation of EU environmental legislation. The Communication identified six root causes related to coordination across levels of governance, administrative capacity, financing, knowledge and data, compliance assurance and policy integration.

This CoR study aimed to inform the work of the European Committee of the Region in the drafting of an Opinion on the EIR, due to be adopted in October 2017. The desk research and survey conducted for this study aimed to determine the ways in which the previously identified root causes of insufficient implementation of environmental legislation are linked to multi-level governance issues.

The study also identified actions that successfully address these root causes, and provides recommendations on how to improve cooperation with, and better support, local and regional authorities for an effective multi-level governance in the implementation of EU environmental law.