Survey of the role and effectiveness of the Regional Environmental Authorities

The figure of the Environmental Authority, set up within the 1994 - 1999 programming cycle, has been confirmed from the 2000-2006 Community Support Framework that stressed its relevance in ensuring both the integration of the environmental component in all the measures covered by the Funds, in a sustainable development prospect, and the conformity of such measures with the Community regulation and policies in environmental matters. A similar course was followed by the Objective 2 Regions that, through their Single Programming Documents, have set up Environmental Authorities in their administrations.

The need to take stock of the situation and to verify how the Environmental Authority is currently performing its function in the various Regions has caused the Network to resort to a survey that has been carried out through a questionnaire addressing specifically the Environmental Authorities as well as through a direct dialogue with the parties concerned. The survey has outlined a rather comprehensive picture of the experiences currently under way.

In particular, the interlocutors have explained the type of activities they are carrying on, highlighting the aspects they deem most relevant, the difficulties they meet in their operations, and the prospects that are likely to develop. The outcome of the survey relates in particular to the aspects outlined below.

• Prevailing activities and ambits of intervention, which takes into consideration the activities actually carried out by the Environmental Authorities.
• Relational arrangements, which analyzes how the Environmental Authority interacts with the other parties that, within the Region, need to cope with the environmental issue, and the support provided in this respect by the POCS (Operational Systematic Cooperation Plans).
• Organizational aspects, including the problems connected with the organizational position of the Environmental Authority within the Region and the extent to which such a position is likely to condition the real effectiveness of the Environmental Authority and its ability to dialogue and establish proactive relations with the other structures.
• Effectiveness in terms of sustainability and integration, which reviews the transversality of the presence of the Environmental Authority in the regional context and to what extent this allows and/or promotes the transfer of the knowledge acquired within the context of Community programs to other regional programming sectors.
• Difficulties and expectations, which probes into the major difficulties reported by the Environmental Authorities, their expectations and proposals for future activities.

RESULTING DOCUMENT:

• Relazione sulle Autorità Ambientali [it] (pdf, 557 kb)