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CONSIGLIO REGIONALE
Assemblea legislativa delle Marche
(REGIONAL COUNCIL, legislative assembly of the Marche Region)
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WHEREAS
participation in the preparatory phase of EU legislation, especially with regard to particularly important issues which come into conflict with the laws of Member States, can be the most effective way of conveyingthe expectations of the Member States' regionsto the EU institutions, thereby avoiding complex disputeswith the European Union due to clashes between EUlegislation and national provisions;
EU rules on the environmental impact assessment of public and private projects directly concern the administrative functions of regions, in their capacity as the authorities responsible forlaunching the procedure;
the proposal for a directive may not be in line with a scrupulous applicationof the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, as set out in Article 5 of the relevant protocol annexed to the Treaties, since it does not contain an assessment of the financial impact of applying its provisions;
in substance, the review of the directive on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and projects on the environment, as proposed by the European Commission, meets the requirement for simpler and clearer procedures; that said, it would be useful if Article 2 of the proposal explicitly stated that Member States were bound to establish a single administrative procedure for assessing the environmental impact of a given project, making the procedure far more efficient both in terms of achieving its objectives, i.e. environmental protection, and of reducing the administrative burdens that the application of this law entailsfor public and private operators;
the approval of new European legislation on an environmental impact assessment (EIA) could be an opportunity to introduce a procedural deadline for implementing the scoping process in order to reduce uncertainty relating to the duration of a procedure for which the timeframes are often unknown;
That said and considered,
INTENDS TO SUBMIT TO THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT
the following considerations regarding the proposal for new EU legislation on environmental impact assessments, in the context of established political dialogue with the EU institutions, and going beyond procedures for verifying and monitoring the application of the subsidiarity principle as provided in the relevant protocol; this resolution will be sent to the EU institutions and to the REGPEX network recently provided by the Committee of the Regions to link the Member States' regional and local authorities in order to monitor, in practice, the correct use of the subsidiarity principle, referred to in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union.
Firstly, it should at least be mentioned that the proposal risks breaching the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, as set out in Article 5 of the relevant protocol annexed to the EU treaties, since it does not include any assessment whatsoever of the financial burden incurred by its entry into force, once it has been approved and
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by its consequences for national legislation, in the strict sense of the term, and on the Member States' regional legislation, not to mention businesses as a whole, which shoulder a significant part of the burden associated with environmental assessment procedures. In this connection, we briefly recall the case-law of the Court of Justice, which, referring to the EU legislature,accepts that "in the exercise of the powers conferred on it the Community legislature must be allowed a broad discretion in areas in which its action involves political, economic and social choices and in which it is called upon to undertake complex assessments and evaluations", that it "must base its choice on objective criteria"and that "it must examine whether objectives pursued by the measure chosen are such as to justify even substantial negative economic consequences for certain operators" (Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 8 June 2010 - C-58/08, Vodafone Ltd.).
The Court has also specified that in order to examine the options set out in a new European legislative proposal, the Commission relies on impact assessments and the outcomes of consultations held during the pre-legislative phase. In the case under consideration, as previously stated, the European Commission's impact assessment does not include an analysis of the possible consequences in relation to the rules of local and regional authorities.
With regard to substance, it would nevertheless appear useful to first underline the positive aspects of the proposed amendments in the new EIA directive. The most crucial among them, in part due to the overall macroeconomic situation in both Italy and Europe,which requires prudent use of public resources, concern the coordination or integration of assessment procedures (see Article 2(3) of the proposal), insofar as it ensures integrated administration (one-stop shop), with regard to private activities not previously covered by this directive, thereby putting into practice the principle of non-duplication of assessments.
An equally important amendment introduces the definition of maximum timeframes for procedures (see Article 4(6) for the screening process and Article 8(3) for the EIA), not to mention minimum and maximum timeframes for certain crucial phases of these procedures, with particular reference to timeframes for "public consultation" during the EIA.
We also endorse the decision to clarify the rules on the screening procedure. In this regard, it is all the more important for Annex III to provide a clearer and more detailed definition of the requirements and the scaleof projects that need to undergo a screening procedure, in order to avoid increasing administrative burdens for project proposers.
The proposed amendments to Article 4 of Directive 2011/92/EU allow screening to carry out its proper function, i.e. a purely technical preliminary assessment by the competent authority solely to establish whether projects could have significant negative environmental impacts and,consequently, whether theyshould undergo a proper EIA.
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Secondly, in light of proposed amendments to Article 5 ofDirective 2011/92/EU, which provide for mandatory scoping to define the project's limits in greater detail and, consequently, any future assessmentof its impact, it seems useful to suggest amending the proposal so that it also includes a procedural deadline for this phase, in order to provide certainty regarding the timeframes for its completion, as is the case for screening and EIA procedures. Introducing a fixed timeframe for scoping would provide an additional reason regarding the necessity of the proposed amendments and further justification for increasing the administrative burden for project proposers and the public authority responsible for carrying out the assessment. Also to this end, we believe that it is important for the proposal to clarify and specify which documents and information should be subject to scoping.
The President
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