European Parliament’s Committee on Environment debated on Monday 15 June the draft report on the proposal for a regulation aimed at accelerating the environmental assessments required for permitting.
In response to the draft report (https://aeur.eu/f/mdq ) by Emma Wiesner (Renew Europe, Swedish), the European Commission’s representative called on MEPs to refrain from overloading a text that is not intended to cover “the entire permitting process, but only environmental assessments”. He opposed the rapporteur’s proposal to delete the concept of ‘strategic project’: “Having the same degree of acceleration for all projects would not be realistic and would risk jeopardising those that are truly strategic”, he warned.
The senior official urged MEPs to adhere as closely as possible to the Commission proposal and, in the interest of expediency, to “avoid too many amendments”. The deadline for the tabling of amendments is 23 June.
The main change proposed by Ms Wiesner concerns the deletion of Article 14 (the ‘toolbox’ for strategic sectors) and its Annex. Although the concept of strategic sectors is used in other legislation, it is not based on any established legal definition, Ms Wiesner argues.
In her view, applying this concept risks creating a two-tier system, in which certain sectors would benefit from accelerated processing to the detriment of the coherence and fairness of the overall permitting framework. The rapporteur therefore advocates that all projects be subject to a uniformly modernised, faster and more predictable environmental assessment framework, rather than reserving fast-track procedures for a limited number of projects.
The Commission’s proposal for Article 14 (a special regime for strategic projects) could set dangerous precedents (for example, circumventing environmental rules).
The Commission proposes introducing maximum time limits harmonised at EU level, applicable uniformly across all Member States, regardless of project complexity or national administrative traditions. Ms Wiesner advocates an alternative approach: rather than imposing rigid deadlines, she suggests that the competent authority communicate, at the outset of the scoping phase, a timetable specific to each project, based on national standards derived from comparable projects. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)