Directive 2001/42/EC-SEA of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 402

sustainable development, 5 supplemented by Council Decision No 2179/98/EC 6 on
its review, affirms the importance of assessing the likely environmental effects of
plans and programmes.
(3) The Convention on Biological Diversity requires Parties to integrate as far as possible
and as appropriate the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into
relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans and programmes.
(4) Environmental assessment is an important tool for integrating environmental
considerations into the preparation and adoption of certain plans and programmes
which are likely to have significant effects on the environment in the Member States,
because it ensures that such effects of implementing plans and programmes are taken
into account during their preparation and before their adoption.
(5) The adoption of environmental assessment procedures at the planning and
programming level should benefit undertakings by providing a more consistent
framework in which to operate by the inclusion of the relevant environmental
information into decision making. The inclusion of a wider set of factors in decision
making should contribute to more sustainable and effective solutions.
(6) The different environmental assessment systems operating within Member States
should contain a set of common procedural requirements necessary to contribute to a
high level of protection of the environment.
(7) The United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Environmental
Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context of 25 February 1991, which applies to
both Member States and other States, encourages the parties to the Convention to
apply its principles to plans and programmes as well; at the second meeting of the
Parties to the Convention in Sofia on 26 and 27 February 2001, it was decided to
prepare a legally binding protocol on strategic environmental assessment which would
supplement the existing provisions on environmental impact assessment in a
transboundary context, with a view to its possible adoption on the occasion of the 5th
Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” at an extraordinary meeting of the
Parties to the Conventions, scheduled for May 2003 in Kiev, Ukraine. The systems
operating within the Community for environmental assessment of plans and
programmes should ensure that there are adequate transboundary consultations where
the implementation of a plan or programme being prepared in one Member State is
likely to have significant effects on the environment of another Member State. The
information on plans and programmes having significant effects on the environment of
other States should be forwarded on a reciprocal and equivalent basis within an
appropriate legal framework between Member States and these other States.
(8) Action is therefore required at Community level to lay down a minimum
environmental assessment framework, which would set out the broad principles of the
environmental assessment system and leave the details to the Member States, having
regard to the principle of subsidiarity. Action by the Community should not go beyond
what is necessary to achieve the objectives set out in the Treaty.
(9) The Directive is of a procedural nature, and its requirements should either be
integrated into existing procedures in Member States or incorporated in specifically
5 OJ C 138, 17.5.1993, p. 5.
6 OJ L 275, 10.10.1998, p.1.