The development of the Monitoring Matrix on approximation process to EU environmental acquis is an activity implemented within the EU-funded project “Development of the ENV.net in West Balkan and Turkey: giving citizens a voice to influence the environmental process reforms for closer EU integration”.
During the first phase of this project, ended on 31st January 2015, a lot of information was collected by the partners from Western Balkans and Turkey through a monitoring exercise conducted to compare the national legislations with the EU environmental policy and to identify the possible gaps. It was then decided to have an on-line tool to collect and organise this information in a structured manner and to make it accessible to all possible stakeholders.
The ENV.net Monitoring Matrix platform aims at giving an overview on the approximation process to the EU environmental acquis in the countries covered by the ENV.net network. More specifically, it allows to compare specific directives of the EU environmental policy with the national legislations and to identify possible gaps in the adoption and implementation processes. Moreover, it presents the findings and recommendations raised from this monitoring exercise.
The Monitoring Matrix section of this platform presents an overview of all categories of the environmental policy and include links to relevant EU pieces of legislation. The matrix is also downloadable in pdf version.
In the country pages of the platform, there is a general presentation of the situation of each country concerning the approximation process and a detailed analysis on the national legislation compared to the EU pieces of legislation. The Matrix does not aim to cover all directives and legislations of the EU acquis, but rather a selection of them that are considered the most important for all partners’ countries. In particular, three specific categories of the acquis have been selected so far:
- Water quality
- Horizontal legislation
- Climate change
Within these categories, some specific legal scopes/directives have been selected and monitored accurately in their adoption by the local governments and when relevant in their implementation.
Main findings and recommendations from the ENV.net appear in all country pages and can be compared between countries.
The ENV.net monitoring matrix is a work in progress. It will be continuously updated by the ENV.net partners and it will hopefully include inputs from other organisations that would like to contribute. To this purpose, all interested stakeholders can contact us at any time to ask for additional information or to contribute to this initiative.