Blog
01.May 2001 - 00:00
Setting new standards
Public access to environmental information is an essential requirement if the EU's goals in environmental policy are to be achieved. Eija-Riitta Korhola MEP (Finland/ EPP-ED) explains how her Report on the Commission's proposal for a new directive on this area has prepared the ground for a big step forward in transparency.
The European Parliament adopted on its first reading on March 14 a Report on Access to Environmental Information. "If we wish to be able to achieve the circumstances needed for sustainable development, we must begin by putting the citizen at the centre of environmental policy," was how Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström justified the new directive.
It was especially pleasing and surprising that the first reading in the Parliament was carried by 505 votes in favour, two abstentions and no votes against. Senior officials claim that it was the first time in the Parliament's history that a plenary sitting with a clear quorum adopted a legislative report without any opposition. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly a rare occurrence, so rare that I, as the Rapporteur, was able to enjoy exceptional quantities of flowers sent to my office. It looked like a garden the day after the vote.
Reports in the Environmental Committee are usually very technical in nature and almost any amendment requires a great deal of detailed technical information and expertise. Whenever there is a report of a more ideological character, Members are almost sure to be tempted to produce piles of amendments expressing all manner of good intentions – almost to a poetic extent. This also happened with Access to Environmental Information. The Rapporteur had to keep both her feet on the ground in order to keep the Report concise and effective. After all, it was supposed to be a framework directive.
The Commission's proposal has a very positive tone. It should mean a big step forward in both transparency and in attaining the environmental objectives of the Union. The Commission's proposal was further improved by 30 amendments by the Parliament. It was encouraging that the Committee adopted all 25 amendments moved by the Rapporteur, including a whole new article on the quality of the information to be supplied. The Council is expected to decide on a common position in June. So far, news from within the Council has been most encouraging but eventually another reading seems likely to be required.
Commissioner Wallström was quite right in linking this directive with the long and vitally important process that started in Rio, in June 1992. Another part of the background for this directive is the Århus Convention (1998), which was brokered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and signed by the European Community and all the fifteen member states. The Århus Convention is actually an important step in putting into practice the Tenth Principle of the Rio Declaration.
Before the European Community can ratify the Århus Convention, it has to revise existing legislation appropriately. This is now underway with the first pillar of Århus, which grants the citizen the right to access environmental information. Indeed, the citizen is guaranteed rights to information, as opposed to simply being free to acquire it.
The directive will be followed by two other proposals – the remaining two pillars of the Århus Convention: on public participation in environmental decision making and on access to justice. At the moment work is in progress on the Report on Public Participation in the Parliament and I am the Rapporteur on that directive too.
In June 2000, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a new directive on public access to environmental information, together with a report on the experience acquired from the old directive on freedom of access to information on the environment (90/313/EEC). The proposal has three principal aims: to benefit from the experience from application of the old directive and to correct the shortcomings that have been identified in it; to incorporate the relevant provisions of the Århus Convention into the new directive; and to adapt tbe old directive to the changes in information technology.
To a significant extent, the proposal does appear to achieve these aims. This is important, since access to information is an important horizontal instrument of EU environmental policy and revision of the old directive has taken a long time.
According to the old directive, the member states’ reports to the Commission were due at the end of 1996 and it was originally expected that the Commission would issue its report in 1998 at the latest. Two developments delayed the Commission’s report and proposal. The first was the completion of the negotiations in mid-1998 for the UNECE Århus Convention. The second was the resignation of the European Commission in March 1999.
Of its three specified aims, the proposal succeeds best in meeting the requirements of the Århus Convention. In particular, these provisions concern definitions and exceptions. The definition of both public authority and environmental information in the Århus Convention represents an improvement in comparison to the definitions in the old directive, and these improvements have been carried over into the proposal and the Report. For example, the privatised utilities, such as water companies, cannot claim exemption on disclosing information concerning their public functions.
The scope of the exceptions has been narrowed, in accordance with Århus, by permitting exceptions only if disclosure would adversely affect a protected interest. The exceptions for commercial confidentiality, especially regarding emissions, and for court proceedings and other inquiries have also been reworded in favour of increased transparency and further amended by the Parliament. The Parliament followed the Rapporteur in its preference for full disclosure of data on emissions, without exemptions. Emissions are equally harmful wherever they come from.
Other improvements derived from the Århus Convention include a reduction of the time limits from two months to one month, with the possibility of a one-month extension in exceptional cases, and the requirement for public authorities to supply information in the form requested, if it is readily available in that form. The Parliament further reduced the time limits to two weeks and six weeks respectively. This reduction was made in the face of the opposition of Commissioner Wallström. The procedures for review have also been improved.
The Commission’s proposal expressly addresses the need to make information more accessible via modern information technologies. Public authorities must, for example, make reasonable efforts to maintain information in forms or software formats that are readily reproducible and accessible by electronic means.
Member states are also called upon to take the necessary measures so that environmental information in particular can be disseminated electronically. Nevertheless, the Commission’s proposals are quite general and make no mention of contemporary advances and requirements to post all official correspondence, documents, decisions and proposals to internet sites. Now, binding requirements have been added by the Parliament – although both the Rapporteur and the Commissioner reminded the Parliament of the framework nature of the directive under consideration.
On the other hand, the Rapporteur herself wanted to oblige the member states to provide "publicly accessible lists of environmental information held by or for public authorities" and to have them published by electronic means as well. In order to be able to exercise their right to information, citizens have to know what documents are accessible and which public authorities are responsible for them. The establishment of such registers is thus an essential precondition for the operation of this directive.
Finally, the Commission’s proposal also reflects the experience gained in practice with the old directive. Thus, in recognition of the increasing amount of information physically held, on behalf of public authorities by permit holders or other private bodies, as a matter of convenience, the proposal embraces information held by or for public authorities.
The proposal allows, as did the old directive, for a reasonable charge to be made for supplying information, but specifies that it should not exceed actual copying or transcription costs and stipulates that inspection in situ is free and that advance charging is not permitted.
The Rapporteur was concerned by the vast amount of environmental data which is still not collected, measured and sampled in standardised forms in the EU. The problem becomes the more acute the wider the information is to be disseminated. After all it is quite hard for a lay person to know whether the data represents samples taken directly from the pipeline – or from a nearby meadow with a butterfly net. Therefore a totally new article on the quality of the information was drafted.
The Directive does not cover environmental information held by European institutions — except where it has already been entrusted to public authorities in the member states. Another relevant report however exists, adopted on May 3 2001, by Michael Cashman MEP (UK/PES) on public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (COM(2000)30 – 2000/0032(COD)), pursuant to Article 255 of the Treaty.
As it is not yet clear what the practical application of these new transparency regulations will be, the Parliament has demanded that similar standards on disclosing environmental information should apply to both EU institutions and to the member states. Such good standards are now set in the report on Access to Environmental Information. It is a good starting point for Commissioner Wallström to fulfil her promise on a timely proposal for regulating the right to access environmental information held by all EU institutions and bodies supervised by them.
Eija-Riitta Korhola MEP (Finland/ EPP-ED) writes in her capacity as a Rapporteur on Access to environmental information for the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The Parliament, May 2001
Public access to environmental information is an essential requirement if the EU's goals in environmental policy are to be achieved. Eija-Riitta Korhola MEP (Finland/ EPP-ED) explains how her Report on the Commission's proposal for a new directive on this area has prepared the ground for a big step forward in transparency.
The European Parliament adopted on its first reading on March 14 a Report on Access to Environmental Information. "If we wish to be able to achieve the circumstances needed for sustainable development, we must begin by putting the citizen at the centre of environmental policy," was how Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström justified the new directive.
It was especially pleasing and surprising that the first reading in the Parliament was carried by 505 votes in favour, two abstentions and no votes against. Senior officials claim that it was the first time in the Parliament's history that a plenary sitting with a clear quorum adopted a legislative report without any opposition. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly a rare occurrence, so rare that I, as the Rapporteur, was able to enjoy exceptional quantities of flowers sent to my office. It looked like a garden the day after the vote.
Reports in the Environmental Committee are usually very technical in nature and almost any amendment requires a great deal of detailed technical information and expertise. Whenever there is a report of a more ideological character, Members are almost sure to be tempted to produce piles of amendments expressing all manner of good intentions – almost to a poetic extent. This also happened with Access to Environmental Information. The Rapporteur had to keep both her feet on the ground in order to keep the Report concise and effective. After all, it was supposed to be a framework directive.
The Commission's proposal has a very positive tone. It should mean a big step forward in both transparency and in attaining the environmental objectives of the Union. The Commission's proposal was further improved by 30 amendments by the Parliament. It was encouraging that the Committee adopted all 25 amendments moved by the Rapporteur, including a whole new article on the quality of the information to be supplied. The Council is expected to decide on a common position in June. So far, news from within the Council has been most encouraging but eventually another reading seems likely to be required.
Commissioner Wallström was quite right in linking this directive with the long and vitally important process that started in Rio, in June 1992. Another part of the background for this directive is the Århus Convention (1998), which was brokered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and signed by the European Community and all the fifteen member states. The Århus Convention is actually an important step in putting into practice the Tenth Principle of the Rio Declaration.
Before the European Community can ratify the Århus Convention, it has to revise existing legislation appropriately. This is now underway with the first pillar of Århus, which grants the citizen the right to access environmental information. Indeed, the citizen is guaranteed rights to information, as opposed to simply being free to acquire it.
The directive will be followed by two other proposals – the remaining two pillars of the Århus Convention: on public participation in environmental decision making and on access to justice. At the moment work is in progress on the Report on Public Participation in the Parliament and I am the Rapporteur on that directive too.
In June 2000, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a new directive on public access to environmental information, together with a report on the experience acquired from the old directive on freedom of access to information on the environment (90/313/EEC). The proposal has three principal aims: to benefit from the experience from application of the old directive and to correct the shortcomings that have been identified in it; to incorporate the relevant provisions of the Århus Convention into the new directive; and to adapt tbe old directive to the changes in information technology.
To a significant extent, the proposal does appear to achieve these aims. This is important, since access to information is an important horizontal instrument of EU environmental policy and revision of the old directive has taken a long time.
According to the old directive, the member states’ reports to the Commission were due at the end of 1996 and it was originally expected that the Commission would issue its report in 1998 at the latest. Two developments delayed the Commission’s report and proposal. The first was the completion of the negotiations in mid-1998 for the UNECE Århus Convention. The second was the resignation of the European Commission in March 1999.
Of its three specified aims, the proposal succeeds best in meeting the requirements of the Århus Convention. In particular, these provisions concern definitions and exceptions. The definition of both public authority and environmental information in the Århus Convention represents an improvement in comparison to the definitions in the old directive, and these improvements have been carried over into the proposal and the Report. For example, the privatised utilities, such as water companies, cannot claim exemption on disclosing information concerning their public functions.
The scope of the exceptions has been narrowed, in accordance with Århus, by permitting exceptions only if disclosure would adversely affect a protected interest. The exceptions for commercial confidentiality, especially regarding emissions, and for court proceedings and other inquiries have also been reworded in favour of increased transparency and further amended by the Parliament. The Parliament followed the Rapporteur in its preference for full disclosure of data on emissions, without exemptions. Emissions are equally harmful wherever they come from.
Other improvements derived from the Århus Convention include a reduction of the time limits from two months to one month, with the possibility of a one-month extension in exceptional cases, and the requirement for public authorities to supply information in the form requested, if it is readily available in that form. The Parliament further reduced the time limits to two weeks and six weeks respectively. This reduction was made in the face of the opposition of Commissioner Wallström. The procedures for review have also been improved.
The Commission’s proposal expressly addresses the need to make information more accessible via modern information technologies. Public authorities must, for example, make reasonable efforts to maintain information in forms or software formats that are readily reproducible and accessible by electronic means.
Member states are also called upon to take the necessary measures so that environmental information in particular can be disseminated electronically. Nevertheless, the Commission’s proposals are quite general and make no mention of contemporary advances and requirements to post all official correspondence, documents, decisions and proposals to internet sites. Now, binding requirements have been added by the Parliament – although both the Rapporteur and the Commissioner reminded the Parliament of the framework nature of the directive under consideration.
On the other hand, the Rapporteur herself wanted to oblige the member states to provide "publicly accessible lists of environmental information held by or for public authorities" and to have them published by electronic means as well. In order to be able to exercise their right to information, citizens have to know what documents are accessible and which public authorities are responsible for them. The establishment of such registers is thus an essential precondition for the operation of this directive.
Finally, the Commission’s proposal also reflects the experience gained in practice with the old directive. Thus, in recognition of the increasing amount of information physically held, on behalf of public authorities by permit holders or other private bodies, as a matter of convenience, the proposal embraces information held by or for public authorities.
The proposal allows, as did the old directive, for a reasonable charge to be made for supplying information, but specifies that it should not exceed actual copying or transcription costs and stipulates that inspection in situ is free and that advance charging is not permitted.
The Rapporteur was concerned by the vast amount of environmental data which is still not collected, measured and sampled in standardised forms in the EU. The problem becomes the more acute the wider the information is to be disseminated. After all it is quite hard for a lay person to know whether the data represents samples taken directly from the pipeline – or from a nearby meadow with a butterfly net. Therefore a totally new article on the quality of the information was drafted.
The Directive does not cover environmental information held by European institutions — except where it has already been entrusted to public authorities in the member states. Another relevant report however exists, adopted on May 3 2001, by Michael Cashman MEP (UK/PES) on public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (COM(2000)30 – 2000/0032(COD)), pursuant to Article 255 of the Treaty.
As it is not yet clear what the practical application of these new transparency regulations will be, the Parliament has demanded that similar standards on disclosing environmental information should apply to both EU institutions and to the member states. Such good standards are now set in the report on Access to Environmental Information. It is a good starting point for Commissioner Wallström to fulfil her promise on a timely proposal for regulating the right to access environmental information held by all EU institutions and bodies supervised by them.
Eija-Riitta Korhola MEP (Finland/ EPP-ED) writes in her capacity as a Rapporteur on Access to environmental information for the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The Parliament, May 2001