English information

The Flemish High Council of Environmental Enforcement was created by the Flemish act of 21 December 2007, published in the Belgian Official Journal of 29 February 2008. It effectively started its work on the 1^st of May 2009.

This High Council on Environmental Enforcement has a few specific tasks allocated to in this act, mostly concerning the coordination of enforcement policy in the area of environmental legislation. To organise this coordination of environmental enforcement in the Flemish Region, a few specific instruments will be used by the Flemish High Council (as determined in the act):

• The High Council will inter alia organise talks between the various actors (public ministry, administrative agencies etc.) that are involved in the enforcement of environmental law in the Flemish Region. The result of these talks will be laid down in so-called protocols in which it could for example be specified which kind of authorities will execute specific control tasks in particular circumstances.
• The Flemish High Council will make a yearly environmental enforcement programme and this programme will determine for the next year the priorities as far as environmental enforcement is concerned of the various regional entities that have specific competences for environmental enforcement. This yearly programme will also contain recommendations concerning the enforcement of environmental law at the provincial and local level as well as recommendations concerning the collaboration between these various levels of governance.
• The Flemish High Council will also draft a yearly environmental enforcement report. This will contain the results of environmental enforcement during the past year.
• In addition, the Flemish act stipulates that the Flemish High Council determines the priorities for the enforcement of environmental law and does so on its own initiative or on the request of the Flemish Parliament or the Flemish Government.
• In addition to these formal tasks allocated to the Flemish High Council in the act, another important task was allocated to it in the executive order. That specified inter alia that the Flemish High Council had to give advice to the Flemish Government concerning the nomination of the judges belonging to the newly instituted environmental enforcement court (of which Mr Jan Heyman is the newly nominated chair person).

In addition to these tasks, the Flemish High Council has already determined in its first meetings that it considers the following two tasks also of crucial importance:

• Information gathering and information provision concerning environmental enfocement. The Flemish High Council indeed wishes as much as possible to obtain information to know exactly what is happening as far as the enforcement of environmental law in the Flemish Region is concerned. Also, information concerning enforcement policy in this domain will be provided to the general public and to the actors involved. A specific information policy will hence be developed by the Flemish High Council.
• The High Council also finds it of crucial importance to be very active in the domain of data gathering. A major problem in enforcement of environmental law in the Flemish Region was that very few data are available e.g. on the number of inspections, results given to that, number of cases prosecuted, sanctions imposed etc. The Flemish High Council hopes to come to a system whereby all responsible actors would cooperate in providing data to a central information point. In that way, the Flemish High Council hopes to be able to contribute to a reliable and accurate data gathering on the enforcement of environmental policy in the Flemish Region. The basic idea is of course that it is only possible to develop a useful policy in this domain when also information is available on what is actually happening.