Proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation EEC No 1210/90 of 7 May 1990 on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and the European environment information and observation network (97/C 255/09) (Text with EEA relevance) COM(97) 282 final - 97/0168(SYN)

(Submitted by the Commission on 13 June 1997)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 130s paragraph 1 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee,

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions,

In accordance with the procedure laid down in article 189c of the Treaty,

Whereas Regulation 1210/90/EEC (1) established the European Environment Agency and the European environment information and observation network; whereas Article 20 of that Regulation required a decision by Council on whether to add new tasks to the Agency two years after the coming into force of the Regulation; whereas Article 21 stipulated that the Regulation would come into force on the day following that on which the competent authorities decided on the seat of the Agency, this decision being taken on 29 October 1993 (2);

Whereas following the proposal of the Commission and a resolution from the European Parliament, the Council agreed that a decision on the allocation of new tasks should be postponed for two years following the time required for the appointment of staff by the Agency and the subsequent implementation of the Work Programme;

Whereas the European Environment Agency has made good progress in the achievement of its objectives and the completion of its tasks, including the establishment of the European information and observation network;

Whereas the tasks and the areas to address are wide and require both consolidation of the work already undertaken and further effort;

Whereas the Agency has a primary role as a repository and provider of objective, reliable and comparable information on the state and trends of the environment;

Whereas it is considered that any new tasks allocated to the Agency should complement and enhance its primary role;

Whereas the organization and structure of the Agency and its mechanisms need to be improved and clarified, in line with the experience of its first years of operation;

Whereas the Agency may co-operate with institutions in third countries in order to obtain data necessary for the completion of the work programme;

Whereas future reviews of the Agency's performance and tasks should co-incide with the cycle of its five-yearly multi-annual work programme;

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation 1210/90/EEC is hereby amended as follows:

1. Article 2 is modified as follows:

(a) Paragraph (ii) is replaced by the following:

'(ii) to provide the Community and the Member States with the objective information they require for framing and implementing sound and effective environmental policies; to that end, in particular to provide the Commission with the information that it needs to be able to carry out successfully its tasks of identifying, preparing and evaluating measures and legislation in the field of the environment. The Agency shall assist the monitoring of environmental measures through appropriate support for reporting requirements, and through peer reviews and advice, as required by the Commission or on the specific request of a Member State;`

(b) In paragraph (iii) the phrase 'to establish a repository of information on the environment,` shall be inserted at the beginning.

(c) Paragraph (vi) is replaced by the following:

'(vi) to publish a report on the state of the environment every five years, supplemented by annual indicator reports;`

(d) New paragraphs (xi) to (xiii) are inserted as follows:

'(xi) to ensure the broad dissemination of information on the state of the environment to the general public and, to this end, to promote the use of new telematics technology for this purpose;

(xii) to support the Commission in the process of exchange of information and development of Environmental Impact Assessments;

(xiii) to assist the Commission in the diffusion of information on environmental research which has a policy relevance.`

2. In Article 4 the following modifications shall be made:

(a) The following is added as a second sub-paragraph to Paragraph 2:

'Member States shall keep the Agency informed of the main component elements of their national environment information networks. The Member States shall co-operate with the Agency in order to ensure, at national level, the collection, processing and analysis of data as part of the work developed by the European Environment Information and Observation Network in respect of the work programme of the Agency.`

(b) In paragraph 5, the phrase 'a unanimous decision of the members of` shall be deleted.

3. Article 8 shall be modified as follows:

(a) The following is added to the end of the first sub-paragraph of paragraph 1:

'1. , and one representative of each EFTA/European Economic Area State which participates in the Agency as provided for in the European Economic Area agreement.`

(b) The following is added to the end of paragraph 2:

'The management board shall elect a bureau to which it may delegate executive decisions. The executive bureau shall consist of the Chairman and vice chairmen, a representative of the Commission and one of the members designated by the European Parliament.`

(c) In paragraph 3, the phrase, 'except in the case referred to in the second sub-paragraph of Article 4 (5)` shall be deleted.

(d) In paragraph 4, the last sentence shall be deleted.

(e) In paragraph 6, the word 'January` shall be replaced by 'March`.

4. In Article 10, paragraph 2, the word 'nine` shall be deleted.

5. In Article 15, the following new paragraph 2a shall be inserted:

'2a. The Agency may co-operate in areas of common interest with those institutions in countries which are not members of the European Communities which can provide data, information and expertise, methodologies of data collection, analysis and assessment which are of mutual interest and which are necessary for the successful completion of the Agency's work.`

6. Article 20 shall be replaced by the following:

'Article 20

1. Not later than 31 December 2003, on the basis of a report from the Commission, the Council shall review the progress of and tasks undertaken by the Agency.

2. The Agency shall conduct an evaluation of its performance and efficiency before 31 October 1999 and submit a report to the management board and Commission.`

7. Annex B, paragraph 1, shall be replaced by the following:

'The Agency will use, as far as possible, information collected via the official Community statistical system as established under Council Decision 97/. . ./EC. This results from the work of Eurostat and the national statistical services in collecting, validating and disseminating social and economic statistics, including national accounts and related information. In particular, the Agency will make use of work done by Eurostat and the national statistical offices under Council Decision 94/808/EEC, covering statistics on (a) human activities resulting in pressure on the environment and (b) societal and economic responses to such pressures.`

Article 2

The Regulation shall enter into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

(1) OJ No L 120, 11. 5. 1990, p. 1.

(2) OJ No C 323, 30. 11. 1993, p. 1.