Environmental assessment simplification in Spain: streamlining or weakening procedures?

ABSTRACT

The Spanish government has made concerted efforts to simplify environmental assessment processes. In the case of the ‘simplified’ Strategic Environmental Assessment approach, this has been done with the objective of streamlining processes and resources, so that plans and programmes, or their modifications, that are considered to potentially have insignificant or negligible environmental effects are not subject to a full assessment. In contrast, the recently introduced ‘environmental effects determination procedure’ for renewable projects has the purpose of speeding up project approval processes in response to energy security challenges with a resulting potential risk of weakening assessment procedures and debilitating environmental protection. Simplification attempts should not only comply with legal mandates but proactively foster environmentally-sound, participatory and transparent decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic environmental assessment
• environmental impact assessment
• simplified procedures
• benefits and limitations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).