EU's Assembly of local and regional authorities has voted today a set of measures to progress on environmental law implementation in Europe. At stake is the current lack of coherence and consistency in monitoring and reporting to ensure environmental legislation is effectively applied . Amongst the adopted measures is to automatize and digitalise reporting tools and to establish guidance documents and implementation scorecards. Local and regional authorities are responsible for implementing 70% of European environmental legislation.

With UK Government departments and agencies struggling with impact of this winter’s non-stop flooding in the North and West of the country, DEFRA, the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, is having to manage despite having endured very significant cuts to its budget by central government.  Now the Parliamentary select committee, for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has heard that EU fines for legislative compliance in future relating to existing legislation on water, air pollutio

The European Parliament should have the right to decide where and when it meets, the Constitutional Affairs Committee has argued. The Parliament is currently obliged by the Treaties to hold 12 monthly plenary sessions in Strasbourg. MEPs hope to initiate an EU treaty revision procedure to propose the changes needed to allow Parliament to decide on the location of its seat and its internal organisation. Such a move would help save money in times of budget cuts and reduce damage to the environment.

The IES has published a journal investigating the environmental legislation emanating from the EU. It explores key questions over shale gas, the proposed Soil Framework Directive, implementation of EU law, and political and business opinion about the EU in the UK. The publication was produced with the help of ENEP and can be downloaded HERE.