2. Aims and approach

2. AIMS AND APPROACH

The overall objective of Project MW1 is to suggest possible approaches to co-ordinate and improve monitoring in the EEA area. This objective has a number of specific aims, namely to:

• establish the detailed monitoring requirements of existing and proposed European Union legislation, policy and international agreements;
• analyse the information gathered to highlight possible commonalities between the requirements made;
• identify key definitions which may be subject to interpretation and hence possible barriers to harmonisation; and,
• propose ways of harmonising monitoring requirements to avoid duplication, and improve cost-effectiveness.

This Task was achieved by a thorough review of current EU directives, regulations and decisions, policy statements and international agreements. This information was validated and supplemented by each Member State. This was achieved by a short questionnaire which listed relevant legislation, policies and agreements believed to be applicable to each country. The questionnaire was distributed to the Agency’s National Focal Points (NFPs) for completion either by themselves or by other appropriate official bodies, such as the National Reference Centres (NRCs), nominated by them. Members of the ETC had the responsibility of making initial contacts with the NFPs for specific countries, to answer any questions arising and to chase and receive the completed questionnaires. In addition, ETC Members also had a responsibility to seek more detailed information on international agreements applicable to their own country and their other specified countries when necessary. As an example, the questionnaire for the United Kingdom is reproduced in Appendix A. Copies of the full list of commitments circulated and the list of the national representatives responsible for validating the list are given in Appendices A and B respectively.

The timetable, target dates and those actually achieved, for the circulation and receipt of the completed questionnaire is given in Appendix C. To date replies have been received from all EEA Members except the Belgium regions of Brussels and Walloon.

The information received from, or validated by, the returned questionnaires was entered into a database which was used to examine the information for commonalties and differences in monitoring requirements. The structure of the information and meta-data in the database is described in Section 3. Section 4 summarises the EU legislation and other international agreements which require monitoring. Sections 5 and 6 detail the basic and design requirements of monitoring and Section 7 discusses ways in which monitoring efficiency could be improved. The use of tables in the main text is kept to a minimum, with the more detailed summary tables being incorporated into Appendices D and E.