Ecologic Legal

The European Union has quite a number of directives and regulations on environmental matters. While all Member States are obliged to apply and/or transpose them, the degree to which these legal rules effectively help protect the environment depends to a large extent on their implementation in practice. In particular, proper environmental enforcement requires sufficient staff, with appropriate expertise and technical equipment, and good cooperation between different authorities. There is evidence that environmental law is not consistently enforced in Members States. Therefore, in 2018, the European Commission published an Action Plan on Environmental Compliance and Governance; it sets out various actions aimed at improving environmental compliance and governance in Member States. Ecologic Institute leads a consortium supporting the Directorate-General for Environment in implementing the Action Plan.Read more

From the 26 until 30 September 2016, the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the "Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species" (CITES COP 17) took place in Johannesburg South Africa. Since CITES entered into force in 1975, such meetings are held every three years to review progress in the conservation of target species and consider adopting proposals to amend this list and improve Convention effectiveness. Given the recent accession of the European Union to CITES in April 2015 and the aims noted above, Ecologic Institute was commissioned by the European Parliament under an existing framework contract to prepare a briefing to the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). The briefing is available for download.Read more