State of play, main conclusions, outlook

The initiative aims at supporting the national authorities to address a number of problems and challenges relating to promoting, monitoring and enforcing compliance with EU environmental law (environmental compliance assurance). The Commission action plan is expected to help significantly increase the effectiveness of national compliance assurance systems and thus contribute to more coherent implementation and enforcement. It will lead to a level playing field for businesses and improved trust amongst Member States, EU institutions, the public and business in how compliance is secured.

Developments since 2019:

The initiative on Environmental Compliance Assurance was adopted in 2018. It includes a Communication on actions to strengthen environmental compliance and governance and a Decision creating a new high-level Expert Group, the Environmental Compliance and Governance Forum.

The Action Plan responds to a demand for support to practitioners working across the EU to help improve compliance assurance and governance in the field of environment. Its initial phase included targeted support measures implemented in the period 2018-2020. In February 2020, new action areas were agreed after consultation with the Environmental Compliance and Governance Forum which was established as a high-level Commission expert group with the adoption of the Action Plan to steer the implementation and to serve as a platform for strategic exchanges on environmental governance issues.

The activities under the Action Plan are designed to ensure a collaborative approach between the EU institutions and bodies, in particular the Commission, the EU Member States and the European networks of environmental enforcement practitioners. It is a solution-oriented initiative aimed at improving implementation and enforcement of existing requirements in the legislation.

Already completed work includes:

• Guidance on combating environmental crimes and related infringements, available in different languages

• Summary guide on combating environmental crimes and related infringements

• Guidance on complaint-handling - Vade Mecum available in different languages

• Summary guide on handling environmental complaints available in different languages

• Summary Guide and Vade Mecum on environmental compliance assurance in rural areas

• Technical guidelines inspections of extractive waste facilities

• Report - Training needs of IMPEL practitioners

• Assessment of Environmental Governance in the Member States - Study report and Member States reports

• Exploring the feasibility of an Environmental Implementation Portal - Study report

• Compilation of CJEU case law on Member States’ obligation to remedy failures to carry out environmental assessments.

Other relevant ongoing activities include, inter alia:

• support for the work on the proposal for a new Environmental Crime Directive and identification of good practices on sanctioning of environmental offences;

• optimising and further developing Commission cooperation with European networks of enforcement practitioners, supporting network capacities, and encouraging Member States to do the same;

• ensuring that relevant Green Deal initiatives address compliance and governance issues;

• reinforcing capacities of national inspectors in relation to coordinated control and enforcement activities;

• promoting geo-spatial intelligence (including use of satellites) for compliance assurance purposes;.

• improving professional training amongst compliance and enforcement practitioners (inspectors, prosecutors, police, judges);

• strengthening mechanisms and methods to optimise the informed use of self-monitoring data in environmental compliance assurance by Member State authorities;

• facilitating capacity building, further developing of environmental expertise and cooperation on cross-border compliance assurance, in particular through enhanced peer reviews, joint enforcement activities and events, and through the use of the TAIEX-EIR Peer2Peer tool.

In 2021, a sub-group on sanctioning of environmental offences was established in the framework of the Environmental Compliance and Governance Forum. Its work aims at ensuring consistency of EU environmental legislation and focuses on developing common views on penalty clauses in sectorial legislation and their relation to the Environmental Crime Directive and on collection on good practices in terms of environmental enforcement and sanctioning.

In November 2022, a TAIEX-EIR multi-country flagship workshop on Environmental Compliance and Governance took place as part of the Commission’s engagement in the auspices of the Environmental Compliance and Governance Forum. The objective of the event was to raise awareness on combating environmental crime and on the proposal for a new Environmental Crime Directive as well as to collect views from academia and practitioners for the further work necessary. Furthermore, exchanges on the Flagship 5 of the Zero Pollution Action Plan explored ways for future collaboration between environmental inspection and enforcement authorities with authorities with similar functions in other areas, to help enhance consistency of enforcement efforts cross policy areas.