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Addressing the enforcement gap
As in other areas of European policy, the implementation and enforcement of EU environmental and nature protection law is often challenging. The responsibility for the implementation and application of European environmental law lies with the Member States, since each Member State has to transpose Community law into its own legal system (Article 10 EC Treaty) However, the Commission, as “Guardian of the Treaty”, has the obligation to ensure that Community law is implemented and applied correctly by the 27 Member States of the EU (Article 211 EC Treaty). To carry out this task the Commission has to rely for a large part of its information on what is provided by the Member States. Although this makes it possible to carry out formal compliance checks on the national legislation, it is much more difficult to assess the quality of transposition and especially the application of the law. Civil society, including NGO’s, can play an important role in addressing this information gap by bringing information on cases of poor quality transposition and implementation to the attention of the Commission. Tackling these inconsistencies and inadequacies is of paramount important for achieving the EU’s objectives of a high level of environmental protection and a level playing field for its economic operators.
Biodiversity policy is currently one of the big environmental themes, featuring high on the political agenda, with the European Member States having committed themselves to halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. An ambitious and detailed action plan to this end has recently been adopted by the Commission and received strong endorsement from all of the EU institutions. But the success of this action plan will depend largely on whether we will be able to drive forward a better and more ambitious implementation of the legislation most fundamental to meeting the biodiversity target: the Birds and Habitats Directives.
To help environmental NGO’s throughout the EU to fulfill their role and to support a better implementation of the relevant legislation, the networks of BirdLife International, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF have decided to launch this joint resource website with relevant guidance documents, tips and hints, and other relevant information which will facilitate the exchange of information and best practice in dealing with infringements of EU law.
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