On 9 and 10 October 2014, an expert meeting on inspection requirements in EU environmental legislation will be held in Lisbon. The meeting, hosted by the Portuguese General Inspectorate for the Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning, is part of the project ‘Make it Work’. The project is an initiative of The Netherlands (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment) and the UK (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) and aims at establishing a forum for discussing broader, strategic approaches to smarter EU environmental law. It seeks to identify opportunities to systematically improve the quality of EU environmental law, thus helping to achieve the benefits associated with the law while delivering a more level playing field across the EU.
The aim of the expert meeting on inspection requirements is to collect views on what guidance can be developed to ensure that EU law requirements on inspections in future are consistent, coherent and smart. The topic of inspections is highly topical because the Commission is considering launching a new horizontal directive on environmental inspections and surveillance and related compliance assurance. At the meeting the following issues will be discussed:
- What is our understanding of inspections requirements: definition, purpose and scope of requirements on inspections and other compliance assurance activities by Member State authorities?
- When is it appropriate to have inspections requirements in EU Environmental legislation?
- What issues should inspections requirements in EU Environmental legislation address?
- What are smart ways of drafting inspections requirements in EU Environmental legislation?
- Can we develop standard texts for (elements of) inspections requirements in EU Environmental legislation?
The invitation for the meeting is send both to the Member States experts who were previously invited to the first Make it Work Poject workshop as to the IMPEL national coordinators.
Contact details
For further information please contact Ms Andrea Illes: ailles [at] ieep.eu