European SEA Directive 2001

The European SEA Directive 2001/42/EC is a European Union Directive in the field of environmental protection, evaluating all those plans and programmes which can produce environmental effects. The environmental assessment procedure will be finalized to indicate, to describe and to evaluate all those effects which can happen on the environment when plans and programmes are implemented and as a consequence all the alternative solutions which can be realized on the basis of objectives and the environmental plans and programmes areas.

According to the European Directive, the assessment can be applied to all those plans and programmes edited in the areas of "agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, industry, transport, waste management, water management, telecommunications, tourism, town and country planning or land use" and which define the referee scene/panel for authorizing the projects listed in the directive 85/337/EC enclosure I and II or for which, considering their effects, it is necessary an evaluation made according to the articles 6 and 7 of the directive 92/43/EEC (Article 3 of the European Directive 2001/42/EC). Besides, the Directive establishes that it will be necessary an environmental report at the end of the evaluation phases. The European SEA Directive will be generally integrate by the EU member States procedures or it will be merged in specific and established procedures. Each State has to consider that all the evaluations will be done at a different hierarchical level so that it will be possible to avoid doubles.

The Directive wants "to provide for a high level of protection of the environment" and, at the same time, it wants to integrate environmental observations with the elaboration and adoption of plans and programmes in order to promote a sustainable development. In this way it shall be possible to evaluate, according to the Directive, plans and programmes with significant effects on the environment.

The Directive provides the definitions of some terms:

All the plans and programmes with relevant environmental effects need an environmental evaluation. Generally, it is necessary an environmental evaluation for:

All those plans and programmes, different from the listed ones, will be classified by the Member States according to their level of significant environmental effects and, as a result, it will be possible to determine whether they need an environmental evaluation or not. All the conclusions adopted by the Member States will be public. The following plans and programmes are excluded by the Directive:

The environmental assessment shall be realized during the first phases, this means during the preparation of plans and programmes and before their adoption or their submission to the legislative procedure.

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