Dear Colleagues,

In the Information Age it is doubtful that governments and the general public lack substantial data on the implementation of the ELD. While we know that there are (should be, because of several reporting, planning etc. responsibilities) significant data on the implementation of the ELD in the Member States, usually these data are not processed systematically and are not made available to the general public, let alone using these data on awareness raising or capacity building purposes. Lack of information, however, represents the major obstacle in improving the implementation of ELD Directive.

Case studies, toolkit and a position paper for the upcoming EC’s MAWP revision

In February 2017 we compiled a summary document about our two projects started in 2016: ELD case studies in 6 countries and an ELD toolkit for NGOs and local communities in several EU countries and prepared a set of suggestions for the better implementation of ELD in the practice in the field of the major substantial and procedural issues, as well as about the necessary capacity building measures. This summary document served as a rough material for our major international conference presentations in the spring of 2017, one in the European Parliament and one in Budapest.
In September 2017, Justice and Environment drafted a position paper for the upcoming revision of MAWP of the European Commission WHEN and decided to bolster it with 5 new targeted national research papers (Austrian, Spanish, Estonian, Slovakian and Hungarian). This Position Paper is organised around the 3 major topics of the ELD Multiannual Working Program of the European Commission and aims to focus on questions where an additional value can be added to the process of stakeholders’ discussions and of rolling on revision of MAWP.

Lack of information amidst the great deal of actually available information

In the present Newsletter we highlight the first and most important issue: availability of information on ELD implementation. This is the bottleneck of any ELD strategies both on EU and national level. Without a critical amount of reliable information on the implementation of the Directive no reasonable measures can be designed or applied for the authorities or for the interested private parties, such as investors, operators, banks, insurance companies etc..
The most obvious sources of ELD information 
- statistics; 
- disaggregated data and analyses of ELD cases from the home page of the ministry responsible for environmental protection;
- environmental emergency databases of the environmental authorities; 
- a list of the old polluted sites (historical pollution) at the authorities; 
- NGO sources and sources of independent scientific research; and 
- European Commission level information where the national reports on ELD implementation are freely available. 
We can conclude that a lot of useful information can be found on ELD practice at certain organisations especially on local level, and on EU level, but usually not so much on national level. What could be the reasons behind this secrecy? The factors are multiple but we can put it quite simply: ELD is not a success story in the majority of the Member States. Therefore it is quite understandable why countries do not hurry to put together and publish detailed data sets and analyses on that topic.

Suggestions for better data collection

J&E therefore has suggested a serial of measures at the Stakeholders’ Meeting, including the ones that can be taken by the stakeholders in the societies that might not be willing to wait until their administrations take decisions and produce some results. According to J&E, NGOs should develop standing programs on collecting information on ELD implementation in their respective countries. Meanwhile the European Commission could encourage the Member States to serve it with more detailed ELD reports and should support the general public when seeking such information. 
NGOs and researchers might be in possession only of “hearsay evidences” in connection with data collection activities of the government, while some of the numerous subjects from those such data are collected leaks out some information. Sporadic information from conferences, the literature or not directly ELD sources (such as PRTR or Seveso ones) might also be helpful. For the 2014 EU national report about the practice between 2008 and 2013, all the Members States have performed some more or less systematic data collection. Such surveys could encompass: 
- the place where the accident happened, the name of the operator and the type and extent of the environmental damages;
- the time of onset of them;
- the date of revealing the facts;
- the time of finishing and the result of the cleaning up operations.
Yet, still the whitest spot on our ELD implementation map is definitely the costs. While the governments might make efforts to collect information on the costs of the remedy operations emerging at the environmental protection authorities, the expenses at the operators are seldom known. After the first waves of the public attention raised by the emergency situation taper down, also less information is revealed about the actual measures taken and their impacts.
Based on all of these, J&E suggests furthermore that:
- the types of data that are collected systematically in the Member States should be harmonized on EU level, in order to enable the general public and the decision-makers to compare their results and find and amend the weakest spots in their respective national ELD systems.
- a European level clearinghouse of best practices would serve well the original goals of the ELD legislators, i.e. prevention and remedy of environmental damages in the quickest, cheapest and most effective way.

Justice & Environment is a network of public interest environmental lawyers from 14 EU countries, working on the major themes of environmental policy and law. J&E has been active in matters concerning the Environmental Liability Directive since 2012.