Environmental impact assessment of public and private projects
The Council of the European Union has reached a common position on its proposed Directive on the assessment of the effect of certain public and private projects on the environment. This Directive, once adopted, will amend the earlier Directive 85/337/EEC in order to clarify, supplement and improve the existing rules on the assessment procedure. In adopting this common position, the Council has endeavoured to improve the coordinated implementation of the Directive by extending considerably the range of projects requiring an obligatory impact assessment, by setting our clearer criteria to be applied when deciding whether projects should be submitted to impact assessment and by tightening the procedures to be applied.