Towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS)

A Communication of the European Commission sets out an approach to modernise and simplify the collection, exchange and use of the data and information required for the design and implementation of environmental policy, according to which the current, mostly centralised systems for reporting are progressively replaced by systems based on access, sharing and interoperability. The overall aim is to maintain and improve the quality and availability of information required for environmental policy, in line with better regulation, while keeping the associated
administrative burdens to a minimum.
In the first place, a set of principles are proposed on the basis of which the collection, exchange and use of environmental data and information should be organised in the future. A key step in the implementation of this approach will be to modernise the way in which information required in various pieces of environmental legislation is made available, through a legislative instrument to be proposed in 2008 which will probably take the form of a revision to the current "standardised reporting directive" 91/692/EC.

In an older report the European Environment Agency proposed in 2002(!) the development of an environmental information structure to reduce the reporting burden in order to allow for better use and reuse of the information reported. That report was first and foremost about cooperation between operating networks such as the EEA/EIONET, the European Commission, the OECD and the various international conventions. It was then hoped that the initiative should add a new dimension to their cooperation in order to attain a shared European environment information system (EEIS). Under this umbrella, they should define and share a common understanding and goals, largely in the form of an information structure, which each organisation can use for its own purposes as well as to support the overall goals.