§5.1 Streamlining environmental assessments

Environmental assessment is a procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions are made. Several pieces of EU legislation contain provisions on environmental assessment procedures. Besides Article 6 of the Habitats Directive, this is in particular the case of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive (47), the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive (48) and Article 4(7) of the Water Framework Directive (WFD (49)). The integration and coordination of the environmental assessment requirements of these directives can greatly contribute to improving the efficiency of environmental permitting procedures. The EIA Directive includes provisions on streamlining the assessment procedures related to environmental issues required under various EU directives, including the Habitats Directive and the Water Framework Directive. It requires specifically that Member States, where appropriate, ensure that coordinated and/or joint procedures fulfilling the requirements of that Union legislation are provided (Article 2(3) of the EIA Directive). Provisions for coordinated or joint environmental assessment procedures arising simultaneously from the SEA Directive and other EU legislation are also set out in Article 11(2) of the SEA Directive. They aim to avoid duplication of assessments, without prejudice to the specific requirements of each directive. The Commission has issued a guidance document on streamlining environmental assessments (50).

← 5 · All articles · 5.2 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07