At the ‘Environment’ Council on Tuesday 17 March, France and the Czech Republic, with the support of Latvia, are to call for the simplification and acceleration of permitting procedures in the environmental field.
The recent proliferation of European sectoral legislation (renewable energy, zero-emission industries, critical raw materials) has, according to these countries, created legal confusion for businesses and administrations alike.
Project sponsors are struggling to determine which permitting regime applies to them, which is slowing down the implementation of strategic European projects, according to a note (https://aeur.eu/f/l7h ) sent to the Council.
These countries are therefore calling for the creation of an ‘omnibus’ legislative simplification package dedicated to permitting procedures. The aim of this single cross-cutting text would be to consolidate and harmonise rules that are currently scattered across several regulations and directives, to define common principles applicable to all the sectors concerned, and to serve as a reference framework for future EU legislation incorporating permitting provisions. According to a French source, administrations and economic operators believe that the current approach to simplification is not fully achieving its objective because there are too many exemptions in the permitting rules. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)