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As part of its Smart Regulation policy the Commission has initiated a Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT). This is a continuous process, affecting the whole policy cycle – from the design of a piece of legislation to implementation, enforcement, evaluation and, where justified, revision.
Under the first stages of this programme, the Commission has reviewed the entire stock of EU legislation and decided on follow-up actions, one of which is a ‘Fitness Check’ involving a comprehensive policy evaluation aimed at assessing whether the regulatory framework for a particular policy sector is ‘fit for purpose’. In this context, Fitness Checks provide an evidence-based critical analysis of whether EU actions are proportionate to their objectives and delivering as expected. They cover environmental, economic and social aspects, and concern all EU policy areas.
In the environment policy field, the Commission has already completed Fitness Checks of EU freshwater and waste related legislation, and has now begun a Fitness Check of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives.
The mandate
As a first step, the Commission developed a mandate for the Fitness Check on the EU Birds and Habitats Directives. Published in February 2014, this defines the overall scope and aim of the exercise, and sets out a number of key questions that are to be addressed in relation to the Fitness Check criteria:
- Effectiveness (Have the objectives been met?)
- Efficiency (Were the costs involved reasonable?)
- Coherence (Does the policy complement other actions or are there contradictions?)
- Relevance (Is EU action still necessary?)
- EU added value (Can or could similar changes have been achieved at national/regional level, or did EU action provide clear added value?)
In this context the Fitness Check will examine, among other things:
- Implementation and integration successes and problems
- The costs of implementation and of non-implementation of the legislation
- Opportunities for improving implementation and reducing administrative burden without compromising the integrity of the purpose of the directives
- The situation of implementation in different EU countries
- The views of key stakeholder groups
Here is a link to the mandate for the Fitness Check
A key input to the Fitness Check will be the Commission’s State of Nature in the EU report. The report, which is based on Member States’ conservation status assessments of the species and habitat types protected by the two nature directives, is due in Spring 2015. The mid-term view of the Biodiversity Strategy, foreseen for later in 2015, will also provide further evidence-based information.
Evidence-gathering and public consultation
The collection of evidence, data and information constitutes a critical part of the Fitness Check. Ensuring that all interested parties are able to provide input and make their views known is crucial to the process.
In October 2014, the Commission launched a contract to support the Fitness Check, notably in gathering and assessing relevant information and evidence on implementation and integration achievements and problems from different sources at both EU and Member State level.
Evidence, data and information will be gathered in two key phases.
Phase 1 (January-April 2015) involves an extensive evidence-gathering exercise in which all Member States and selected key stakeholder groups are being consulted.
The list of EU-level representative bodies consulted as part of the evidence-gathering phase can be accessed here.
At national level, one representative from each of the following stakeholder groups have been consulted as part of the evidence-gathering phase in each of the 28 EU Member States:
- 1) Competent authority for nature
- 2) Other public sector body
- 3) Private sector
- 4) Non-governmental organisation involved in nature conservation
In selecting the national level stakeholders, the Commission has sought to ensure that evidence is gathered from a geographically balanced and representative sample of all sectors that interact with the EU nature legislation (eg. agriculture, forestry, marine and fisheries, energy, transport, tourism, other infrastructure development, etc). The full list of stakeholders consulted per Member State is available here.
Between April and the end of June 2015, meetings are also being held in ten Member States in order to gather and examine evidence in more detail, in particular evidence related to costs and excessive or unnecessary administrative burden linked to the Directives and the reasons behind them, as well as implementation challenges and successes. The ten Member States are the Netherlands (16-17 April), Germany (20-21 April), Poland (23-24 April), Spain (5-6 May), Malta (12-13 May), France (19-20 May), and the United Kingdom (1-2 June) Sweden (8-9 June), Slovakia (23-24 June), and Estonia (29-30 June, tbc).
Phase 2 (30 April- 24 July 2015): the Commission has launched a 12-week public Internet consultation, which is open to all and is available in 23 official languages of the EU. The questionnaire is in two parts with an initial set of general questions followed by a more detailed set of questions that explore different aspects of the Fitness check. Respondents have the option of only responding to the general questions or, if they wish, addressing the more detailed ones too. The results of the public consultation will be published in the autumn.
Reference documents
A list of Commission studies and published and peer-reviewed key documents relevant for the evaluation of EU Nature Directives has also been drawn up. The relevance to different questions in the mandate of the fitness check is indicated under each of the categories (S = Effectiveness; Y = Efficiency; R = Relevance; C = Coherence; AV = EU added value). The Commission would welcome further contributions to this list, which will be updated at regular intervals and posted on this webpage.
If you would like to propose a document for the list please send the following information to info.NatureDirectivesFitnessCheck@milieu.be:
- Title of publication or review;
- Author(s);
- Type of document (scientific review, publication, study report…)
- Web link to publication or review
- Short explanation of the relevance of the document in relation to the mandate questions or the Fitness Check criteria
All proposals will be studied carefully, but the Commission reserves the right not to include documents that do not meet the necessary criteria or for which insufficient information has been provided. Please note that only documents which have been published (on paper or online), in particular those that have been subject to peer review, will be considered.
Indicative timeframe and key milestones for the Fitness Check
- February 2014: publication of the mandate for the Fitness Check on the Habitats and Birds Directives
- End October 2014: launch of a contract to assist the Commission in the gathering and assessment of relevant information and evidence for the Fitness Check by a consortium, led by MILIEU Legal and Policy Consultant in partnership with the Institute of European Environment Policy (IEEP), ICF International and ECOSYSTEMS Ltd.
- From January 2015: consultation on the draft list of key documents that are relevant to the Fitness Check.
- January 2015: start of a structured evidence gathering consultation with all Member States and key stakeholder groups
- April 2015: launch of a 12 week public internet consultation NOW OPEN!
- April 2015 publication of the 'State of Nature in the EU' report, based on Member States conservation status assessments for the Birds and Habitats Directives
- June 2015: Green Week 2015, in Brussels, will focus on nature and biodiversity related issues and will provide opportunities for discussion on topics related to the Fitness Check.
- October 23rd, 2015: a dedicated conference will be held on the Fitness Check in Brussels, where draft results of the evaluation will be shared and discussed with Member States and key stakeholder groups.
- Early 2016: publication of Commission report on the results of the Fitness Check.