Proposal for a new EU Environment Action Programme to 2020

The European Commission made a proposal for an Environment Action Programme (EAP) to guide EU environment policy up to 2020. In the Action Programme the Commission identifies nine priority objectives:

to protect, conserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital
to turn the EU into a resource-efficient, green and competitive lowcarbon economy
to safeguard EU citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing
to maximise the benefits of EU environment legislation
to improve the evidence base for environment policy
to secure investment for environment and climate policy and get the prices right
to improve environmental integration and policy coherence
to enhance the sustainability of EU cities
to increase the EU’s effectiveness in addressing regional and global environmental and climate challenge

It includes further implementation of the Shared Environmental Information System principle of "produce once, use often" and the common approaches and standards on acquisition and collation of spatial information under the INSPIRE and GMES. Member States should make information gathered to assess environmental impacts of plans, programmes and projects (e.g. through Environmental or Strategic Impact Assessments) more accessible to the public. The Programme sets out a framework to support the achievement of these objectives through better implementation of EU environment law, state of the art science, securing the necessary investments in support of environment and climate change policy, and improving the way that environmental concerns and requirements are reflected in other policies. The programme also aims to boost efforts to help EU cities become more sustainable, and improve the EU's capacity to meet regional and global environment and climate challenges. Full details of the proposal are available on DG Environment's site.