Environment : effects of public and private projects (amend. Directive 85/337/EEC)

The draft legislative resolution was adopted by 24 votes to 9. All the proposed amendments are designed to meet a dual requirement: greater legal and technical clarity and greater transparency and efficiency in terms of environmental costs and benefits. This applies to the amendments to: - reinstate Article 130r (2) of the TEU, by deleting any reference to subsidiarity; - introduce a list of activities and projects with a significant environmental impact, in the light of the recent votes by the European Parliament (Seveso directive etc.); - grant the European Environment Agency consultative and mediator status in line with its institutional objectives; - subject Community or national programmes to an environmental impact assessment; - decide on the priority of programmes (a prior definition of which has been inserted) over projects in that, because of their structural effects, programmes may have an overall effect which is greater than the sum of the impacts of specific projects; - add nuclear fuel production plants to the installations controlled; - increase publicity and the involvement of interested parties in the procedure in question (through a second expert opinion financed by a European fund).�