Why archive functions are important
An archive function in the EIA portal means that completed EIA procedures can be viewed in the portal and are not deleted once the project has been completed or planning permission has been granted. This is also called for in the Maastricht Recommendations of 2015, in addition to making recordings of discussion meetings or other events accessible (Maastricht Recommendations on Public Participation in Decision-making). Together with a user-friendly search function, users can search the portals specifically for projects that have already been completed. This is important for citizens and environmental organisations, as it allows them to track past construction projects, etc. and the authorities’ decisions for a specific region or on a specific topic.
It is particularly noteworthy if the EIA procedures can be traced back to the first EIA procedures in the 1990s. The EIA portals should not only contain the official announcements of past EIA procedures, but also the documents, as this is the only way the public can obtain information from completed procedures. Links to the authorities’ websites with the documents is also a conceivable solution, but it must be ensured that the documents are not deleted from the authorities’ websites. In many national EIA portals, however, the procedures are deleted immediately after completion.
Good practice examples of successful archive functions can be found in Estonia, Austria, Kazakhstan, France and a regional portal in Germany (Brandenburg participation portal).
Good practice examples
Austria
There is also an archive function in the EIA portal in Austria. Projects dating back to the 1990s can be viewed in the EIA database of the Austrian Federal Environment Agency. The search mask can be filtered by project type, federal state, procedure status and the period of the initial application and decision.
Source: Austrian EIA database
Source: Austrian EIA database
Estonia
There is no centralised EIA portal in Estonia. The situation is therefore unclear overall. Information on past EIA procedures is published in two different places. One is the government’s public announcements portal (Ametlikud Teadaanded), which is used to publish all legally required announcements. Here, a search system can be used to search for past EIA procedures by the type of notice, a keyword and the date of publication. The entries are a valuable source of information on EIA procedures in the past. However, only the official notices are available here and the entries often do not contain direct links to the documents.
Source: The homepage of the portal Ametlikud Teadaanded (English version).
In Estonia, information on past EIA procedures is also published on the KOTKAS portal. The KOTKAS portal is the official online portal for the publication of EIA materials in the context of environmental authorisation procedures and is operated by the Estonian Ministry of the Environment. The portal provides information on most environmental impact assessments carried out in the past. A search mask can be used to search for the name of the project, the region or location (municipality), the status of the procedure (initiated/ongoing/completed), or a keyword. For each EIA procedure there is a one-page summary with all relevant data on the planned activity and the EIA as well as links to the EIA materials. In some cases there is also a link to the webpage with the documents of the actual authorisation procedure, but the documents seem to be available only for the most recent procedures (procedures dating back about 2-3 years).
France
Information on procedures with EIAs from 2007 onwards can be viewed on the French EIA portal. However, links to the relevant information are generally only available online for procedures from 2018 onwards. The portal is searchable by type of project, topics, stage of the procedure and type of procedure. The procedures can also be searched by keyword. However, it is not possible to filter by date or time period. A rough search for procedures in specific regions is possible using a map function.
Kazakhstan
The Kazakh Eco-Portal has an archive in which information on completed public hearings and procedures can be found. However, users need to know the project number, initiator, etc. to find information on completed public hearings in the archive. The portal can be filtered by project type, initiator, project name, start date and end date.
In addition, according to the legal regulations in Kazakhstan, the competent authorities are supposed to upload the video recordings of public hearings online in the portal, but there are no video recordings in the portal.
Germany (region of Brandenburg)
The Brandenburg participation platform is also a good practice example for the archive function. The participation platform was developed by environmental NGOs in Brandenburg in collaboration with UfU to facilitate the joint processing of comments. An archive that is missing in Germany’s central EIA portal is being set up in the portal. Procedures up to the year 2014 are available. Participation platforms with the same concept were subsequently also set up in the federal states of Berlin and Lower Saxony.
