MSFD-BHD Coordinated assessment

Project Description

Environmental monitoring and reporting of EU environmental policy provides information that is used to assess compliance with legal obligations, to help build the evidence base required for implementation and policy making and to provide information more generally to organisations and citizens on how well policy is delivering its environmental, economic and social objectives. The streamlining of environmental monitoring and reporting is an important part of the Commission’s Better Regulation agenda. Whilst there have been ongoing efforts to streamline environmental monitoring and reporting – such as for the BHD – there is recognition that the current obligations, in many cases, result in unnecessary administrative burden and do not adequately satisfy the information needs. The Commission’s Fitness Check of Reporting and Monitoring of EU Environment Policy - which was informed by a research and evaluation study led by ICF1 – directly responded to this issue.

The issue of streamlining and ensuring coherence between the BHD and MSFD has been an ongoing topic of discussion for a number of years – since before the Commission’s Fitness Check (e.g. the Commission’s ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ documents in MSFD and HBD links; The N2K Group, 2015)2. Action to improve coherence between the BHD resulted in a common format and aligned reporting cycles (implemented in the 10th Article 12 report of 2008-12), providing for simultaneous analysis of the Directives at the same time.

The MSFD requires Member States to establish coordinated monitoring programmes which are compatible with monitoring under other EC legislation, including the BHD. Action to support this has been ongoing for a few years, with the 2014 HOPE conference and workshops on coordination implementation in 2014 and 2015 and more recently 2018.

The earlier workshops recognised that joint monitoring could save resources and allow an assessment based on a common data set. This relates to the findings on efficiency and effectiveness of the Fitness Check – that burdens can be reduced through streamlining and that improved consistency in assessment concludes across the Directives would avoid conflicting data/positions and improve understanding and policy making. This has particular resonance in a trans-boundary context. It was recognised that the process of harmonising reporting would be made easier by first streamlining the monitoring. At the 2018 workshop discussions focussed on the need to address the reporting timelines of the Directives, and to strive for common assessment systems rather than linked systems.

The workshops provided for a for discussions of the issues and opportunities for coordinated assessment across the Directives and allowed Member State existing practices and initiatives to be highlighted. However, they were not suited to providing the evidence base needed to develop a strategic understanding of the issues and opportunities. The present Service Request is a direct response to this, and is structured in a way that will provide firstly, an understanding of the practical and organisational issues, and secondly, the technical issues involved in the assessments under the MSFD and BHD. The principal aim of the study is thus to develop an evidence base and recommendations that can help the Commission to take the next steps in streamlining the BHD and MSFD.