Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council, assisted by the Commission, reached on Wednesday 19 December an interim agreement on the Regulation to harmonise, improve and simplify all reporting obligations imposed by EU environmental legislation on Member States, in particular to reduce administrative burden.
Finally, the text will cover ten legislative texts (European directives or regulations) - including, therefore, the 2004 Environmental Liability Directive. On this point, the Council therefore made a concession (see EUROPE 12132).
"Today we are making it easier for national administrations to collect environmental information and easier for everyone to access this information. It is about reducing costs, bureaucracy and increasing transparency, but also about improving the way we use data to address environmental concerns", commented Austrian Minister for Sustainability and Tourism Elisabeth Köstinger, outgoing President of the EU Environment Council.
The National Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) were informed on Wednesday of the successful outcome of the trilogue negotiations. It is only in January that they will confirm this provisional agreement, which has yet to be ratified by the Council and the European Parliament.
This future legislation concerns the Directives on sewage sludge (86/278/EEC), noise (2002/49/EC), INSPIRE (2007/2/EC), birds (2009/147/EC), regulation 166/2006, animal testing directive (2010/63/EU), wood regulation (995/2010), FLEGT regulation (2173/2005), CITES regulation (338/97) and environmental liability directive (2004/35/EC). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)