Scope:

The fitness check assessed regulatory reporting and monitoring obligations across the regulatory acquis in the area of environment. This included almost 60 pieces of legislation and 181 reporting obligations. The fitness check assessed the obligations to report directly or indirectly to the EU level and excluded Member States' monitoring to ensure implementation and environmental monitoring in a wider sense.

Evaluation findings:

The fitness check found reporting to be largely fit for purpose and efficient and the associated administrative burden (estimated cost of €22 million annually) to be moderate, justified and proportionate. The benefits, such as improved and more targeted implementation and better public information, greatly outweigh the costs. It was found that there is room for improvement on some cross-cutting issues, such as streamlining for a process that is more similar in all Member States and for specific pieces of legislation.

Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

As a follow-up to the Fitness Check on regulatory reporting and monitoring obligations across the legislation in the area of environment, the Commission stepped up its efforts on the application, implementation and enforcement of EU law.

The Commission put forward two proposals: one on the procedural rules in the field of environmental reporting and a second one on the alignment of reporting obligations in the field of environment policy.

The aim of the different actions was to develop a more modern, efficient and effective regulatory monitoring and reporting in the field of environment policy, building on the past successes to support the following specific objectives:

• Better results on the ground (i.e. higher implementation and compliance rates);

• Less pressure on public and private sector contributing to reporting (administrative burden reduction);

• Better information and empowerment of citizens (i.e. transparent and public available information);

The alignment proposal covered 10 pieces of environmental legislation in pursuit of the following objectives:

• improving the evidence base for implementing EU policy,

• increasing transparency for the public, and

• simplifying reporting with a view to reducing administrative burden.

Outcome of legislative procedure

To a large extent the benefits of the Commission proposal were confirmed by the co-legislators. All the 10 acts covered by the Regulation have benefitted from a higher level of transparency to the public and reduction of administrative burden for the EU instituitions and the Member States authorities. In particular the following have been achieved:

• certain reporting obligations were repealed;

• some of the timing and frequency for reporting obligations were aligned to meet policy cycle needs;

• improving of access to information and the sharing with the public;

• the roles of the Commission and European agencies were made clearer;

• aligning the content, timing and procedures with the evaluation cycle under the Better Regulation agenda.

The co-legislators agreed on the main underlying principles, namely that what the Commission proposed was designed to cut red tape and facilitate public access to environmental information and improved evidence-based decision-making.

There were no significant changes to the Commission proposals.

Estimated savings and benefits

When it comes to opportunities to simplify and reduce burdens, analysis shows that process improvements are possible with regard to reporting in this area. These improvements will reduce costs or increase benefits, in particular by more widely applying the most efficient processes and by increasing the use of electronic tools and templates. This may require an initial investment, which will, however, pay off in the mid-, and long-term. Given the lack of data¹, the detailed costs and benefits resulting from the proposed simplification measures have not been quantified. However, Annex 9 of the final project report ‘Support to the Fitness Check of monitoring and reporting obligations arising from EU environmental legislation’² looked at the benefits of streamlining EU environmental reporting obligations in relation to a number of recent or ongoing streamlining initiatives over the 2012-2020 period. It is expected that this will lead to a reduced burden relating to the reporting obligations under EU environmental legislation. It was not possible to quantify all of the benefits of burden reductions in financial terms. However, based on the available figures, the project³ estimated that these changes together reduce annual administrative burdens for Member States by a minimum of between EUR 1.4 million and EUR 2.0 million annually across the EU28. Hence, the burden reduction as a result of this proposal is likely to be in the same order of magnitude.

The benefits, such as improved and more targeted implementation and better public information, greatly outweigh the costs. The final adoption of the proposal did not alter these estimates.

¹ See in particular Chapter 6.

² See http://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/reporting/fc_overview_en.htm

³ See under footnote 19.

While the fitness check found environmental reporting to be largely fit-for-purpose, it also identified issues that need to be tackled.

These will be addressed by taking action in five areas, meaning:

1. Getting the right information in the right form at the right time;

2. Streamlining the reporting process;

3. Promoting active dissemination of environmental information at European and national level;

4. Exploiting other data sources and alternative approaches complementing environmental reporting; and

5. Improving coherence and cooperation.

The actions reflect the need to have a common approach to reporting. This means moving from a system where reporting develops in parallel in several different environmental policy fields to a more standardised approach where best practice is adopted across policy fields. The result should be better quality information that is provided more easily and is more widely used. Everybody involved or interested in environmental reporting will benefit. Administrations will benefit through reduced administrative burden. The burden for business will be reduced if Member State administrations pass on the efficiency gains where businesses are involved in reporting and regulatory monitoring. Policy makers will have better quality information for policy development. Last but not least, the European public, businesses and administrations will have better access to better environmental information.

Progress to date is summarised by:  https://ec.europa.eu/environment/legal/reporting/pdf/ENV%20reporting%20-%20progress%20report%20-%20June%202019.pdf

Estimated savings and benefits

Actions undertaken are expected to reduce the administrative burden by between €1.4 million and €2 million per annum. Further savings should be delivered by the Action Plan, along with better and timelier information.