Environmental Assessments in the EU’s environmental policy

The Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972 as part of the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP), asserted the responsibility of States to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (principle 21 in the Declaration). In 1975, the Helsinki Final Act referred to “legal and administrative measures for the protection of the environment including procedures for establishing environmental impact assessments” and mandated the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to follow up on the concept of EIA.

In September 1979 the Seminar on Environmental Impact Assessment took place in Villach, Austria under the stewardship of the UNECE. The reason for convening the meeting was that the rapid pace in technological and economic development led to detrimental effects on the environment and it was therefore recognised that policies needed to be formulated with the aim of averting future environmental damage while developing methods, procedures, techniques, and policies on Environmental Impact Assessment. The Seminar focused on the core elements of environmental assessments: the integration of environmental considerations into planning and decision-making, public information and participation, and EIA as an instrument for handling transboundary problems.

Even though there was no measure adopted in the field of environmental assessments under international law until 1991, the conclusions and recommendations of the Villach Seminar (presented in the conference summary) were essential drivers for the development of legislation on environmental assessments and in particular for the first EIA Directive in the EU.

By the early 1980s, EIA procedures were in place in a number of Member States and, in 1982, a Groups of Experts on EIA was established under the Senior Advisers to ECE Governments on Environmental and Water Problems. In January 1987, the UNEP Group of Experts on Environmental Law elaborated the concept of EIA in a transboundary context.

Introduction to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directives
Slavitza Dobreva