EU: Public consultation about the simplification of administrative burdens in environmental legislation

 

The EU Commission has published a public consultation to facilitate some requirements resulting from the EU environmental law (regarding e.g. the SCIP database or the EPR requirements).

Following the Commission’s commitment to reduce administrative burden for European companies and public authorities, this initiative will simplify and streamline administrative requirements related to the environment in the areas of waste, products, and industrial emissions. The initiative will reduce administrative burden without affecting the policy objectives pursued by the legislation. Also, the initiative will consider permitting challenges relating to environment assessments.

The Commission President’s Political Guidelines for the 2024-2029 mandate place great importance on implementation and simplification: making EU laws more effective and creating a regulatory environment where business can flourish, while preserving the objectives of EU legislation.

The Commission is currently screening environmental laws to identify legislative acts with significant potential for simplifying administrative tasks. The aim is to reduce the administrative burden without affecting the environmental objectives agreed under the existing legislation. The goal is not to lower the EU’s environmental objectives or the protection of human health granted by EU environmental laws, but to attain them more effectively without causing avoidable costs to businesses (especially SMEs), public administrations and the public. This will ensure that environmental policies are faster, easier and cheaper to implement, while ensuring that the environmental objectives are achieved.

Potential areas for simplification measures have been identified based on widespread stakeholder input collected through a previous call for evidence on the rationalisation of reporting requirements, spontaneous stakeholder input, and stakeholder meetings related to environmental legislation. In addition, as part of an ongoing study on environmental reporting, input was gathered from more than 300 participants in an online workshop on 13 February 2025 and a follow-up survey of the same participants. These consultations gathered initial input from stakeholders on areas of administrative and reporting burden. In addition, during the implementation dialogue with Commissioner Roswall on environmental assessments and permitting on 10 April 2025, stakeholders pointed to implementation, digitalisation of procedures, and data quality and data sharing as key for accelerating procedures.

After the stakeholder input has been gathered, this initiative will aim to reduce administrative burden stemming from environmental legislation in the areas of circular economy, industrial emissions and waste management. This may include the following measures:

• rationalising reporting/notification obligations, for example, the discontinuation of the SCIP (substances of concern in products) database under the Waste Framework Directive;
• harmonisation of the provisions for authorised representatives for extended producer responsibility (EPR) in each Member State where a producer sells a product falling under EPR rules and on facilitation of EPR reporting;
• streamlining reporting obligations, removing double requirements to report, promoting further digitalization of reporting in the area of circular economy, industrial emissions and waste management, while maintaining the policy objectives;
• addressing permitting challenges relating to environment assessments based on experience recently gained such as under the Net Zero Industry Act.

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