Environmental Information Act (Austria)

The Austrian Environmental Information Act (UIG) of 2004 aims to create free access to environmental information and to disseminate environmental information.

History of origin

Binding requirements for public access to environmental information were created at European level as early as 1990 with Directive 90/313 / EEC of the Council of the European Communities of July 7, 1990.

In Austria, this directive was implemented in national law in the form of the Environmental Information Act (UIG) of July 27, 1993. For the first time, the UIG 1993 gave individuals a new right to information in the sense of democratic participation through the obligation of the authorities and offices to keep their environmental information transparent.

Directive 2003/4 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of January 28, 2003 on public access to environmental information follows the Aarhus Convention , which was also signed and ratified by Austria and guarantees the - now expanded - right of every applicant to simple and comprehensive information Access to the environmental information available to the authorities.

Austria has been a party to the Aarhus Convention since 2005 . This UNECE Convention is the first international treaty that grants everyone rights in environmental protection . The Aarhus Convention establishes the obligation of the member states to actively gather information and make it available to the public. It contains the obligation of the contracting parties to gradually build up a coherent, nationwide system of directories or registers for recording environmental pollution in the form of a structured, computer-aided and publicly accessible database.

For the third Conference of the Parties in Riga in June 2008, Austria presented the first report on the implementation of the Convention, which has since been updated several times.

With the amendment to the Environmental Information Act 2004, Federal Law Gazette No. 495/1993 as amended by Federal Law Gazette I No. 6/2005, Austria transposed the European Directive 2003/4 / EC into national law on February 14, 2005 at federal level. The European Commission must be reported on the implementation in 2009.

Objectives of the UIG 2004

Extended concept of environmental information
- Environment, health, safety
Extended concept of authority
- All - not just environmental - authorities in the federal, state and local governments
Extended information obligation
- Proof of data, addresses, responsibilities (metadata)
- Active access to data and information
- timely processing of inquiries (1 month)
harmonization
- Standardization of environmental metadata
- Harmonizing effect regarding Information offer and delivery methods
Enhanced Law Enforcement
Coordination point for environmental information

Passive environmental information

Access to the environmental information available at or made available for the bodies required to provide information.

Active environmental information

Promotion of the systematic and comprehensive availability and dissemination of environmental information, primarily through electronic communication media with an environmental information system .

Minimum requirements for actively disseminating environmental information:

The norms of international treaties, community and national law
Political concepts, plans and programs
Implementation reports or their summarized presentation
Environmental status reports, in particular environmental control reports
Data from the monitoring of activities that have or are likely to have an impact on the environment;
Approval notices that have a significant impact on the environment and environmental agreements
Environmental Impact Assessments and Risk Assessments

Coordination Office for Environmental Information (KUI)

According to § 10 UIG 2004, a coordination office for environmental information (KUI) has been set up at the Federal Environment Agency , the aim of which is to ensure easy access to environmental information for everyone by

a list of entities required to provide information is kept that have environmental information,
the exchange of information between these bodies is ensured,
the active dissemination of information is promoted (Internet portal, one-stop shop )
the high quality of the environmental information is guaranteed and
the best possible comparability of the different information is sought.

The bodies required to provide information are coordinated in such a way that the environmental information is understandable, exact, comparable and as current as possible , so that general environmental awareness and environmental protection can be improved and increased.

This systematisation ensures that environmental information is increasingly made public and disseminated by the bodies required to provide information, with this information being available in particular through electronic information and communication technologies.

E-Government Working Group "Environmental Information"

The project group Environmental Information - PG UI deals with the procedure of a joint implementation of the requirements of the Environmental Information Act UIG 2004 within the framework of the cooperation BLSG (federal government - states - cities - municipalities) ( e-government process ).

The focus is on promoting the systematic as well as comprehensive availability and dissemination of environmental information on the internet portals of the authorities (the bodies required to provide information).

One of the main objectives is to set up a central environmental information portal ( one-stop shop ) in Austria analogous to the environmental portal in Germany . The planned Internet applications are being prepared by the Environmental Information project group.

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Karl Thomas Büchele, Daniel Ennöckl: UIG. Environmental Information Act. Comment. Status: July 1, 2005. NWV - Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7083-0280-X .
Monika Eder-Paier: The right to environmental information. Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management - Dept. I / 5, Vienna 2005.