Dialog with experts on legal act for environmental inspection – Exchange on possible transformations in the enforcement of EU environmental law

This research project addresses the partly significant problems of EU Member States in enforcing environmental law as well as the measures announced by the European Commission in response. This includes the proposed horizontal legislation for environmental inspections, which has since been deferred, and the subsequently announced Action Plan. These considerations are based on a specific concept of implementation and enforcement, commonly referred to as “compliance assurance”.

By means of a prospective impact assessment, the research project evaluates which approaches appear most suitable to reduce implementation problems of environmental law in Germany. The report focusses on emission protection, waste, water protection and nature protection law. Building on a legal and public administration scientific analysis, staff from competent authorities are asked in an online survey to assess the current enforcement situation and potential solution approaches. Various approaches for improving implementation are then discussed in four dialogue events with staff from local, regional and state level competent authorities from different German states.

The survey and dialogue events show that staff from competent authorities are rather sceptical about the proposition of horizontal legislation, as they do not expect it to improve implementation in Germany. They rather favor support measures on EU, federal and state levels which could help with the implementation of existing law according to the compliance assurance approach.