Part IV : Worldwide Experience and World Trend

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The SEA Directive (2001/42/EC), being in force since 2001, is applied to the EU Member States such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland and Austria, providing a comprehensive basis for appraising development plans and programmes. The Member States have to conduct SEA according to the states’ own procedures while integrating a set of broad principles and common procedural requirements as laid down in the Directive where appropriate. The requirements include :

• Production of an environmental report including descriptions and evaluations of impacts and alternatives
• Consultation and public participation
• Taking the environmental report into account in decision-making
• Provision of information on the decision, including action recommendations
• Monitoring and review mechanisms

Under the Directive, the Member States have to consider systematically whether the plans and programmes they prepare come within its scope of application and hence whether they need to carry out an environmental assessment of their proposals. If this is the case, SEA being conducted have to comply with the Directive in respect of the contents of the environmental report, the requirements on quality assurance of the report, the provisions of consultation, the nature of the monitoring requirements, and finally the relations between the Directive and other Community legislation.

The Directive ensures that the environmental effects of a broad range of plans and programmes have to be assessed and can be taken into account while plans are actually being developed, and adopted in due course. Meanwhile, the Directive enables public involvement in which the public must be consulted on the draft plans and on the environmental assessment and their views have to be taken into consideration.