The Swedish Enterprise believes that the environmental impact assessment processes take too long and the government agrees.
Simplified and shortened processes are absolutely necessary for Sweden to be able to increase the pace of the climate transition, says Pourmokhtari.
The government's investigator Camilla Adolfsson submitted her 2000-page thick report to the government today. It contains a number of proposals for a coordinated and uniform environmental impact assessment process.
Among other things, a new environmental impact assessment authority is proposed in the first instance, which will take over the responsibility from 330 municipalities and authorities. The proposal means that the role of the land and environmental courts will be refined to reviewing already made decisions.
Swedish law is also proposed to be better adapted to EU law. This means, for example, that time limits will be introduced for the process in Sweden and that one consultation with the affected public will be sufficient.
Shorter time
Two tracks are proposed to be introduced. A fast track for simpler cases that only need to be reviewed, and a permit track for such activities and measures that always require environmental impact assessment.
According to the investigator, the average time from when an environmental impact assessment application is submitted to when a decision is made is 12-18 months. However, this does not include the initial consultation process. This can be compared to Denmark's 4-7 months.
With the investigator's proposal, it is estimated to take an average of 3 months from application to decision in simpler cases and 6-10 months in cases where permits must be granted.
In response to the question of whether this leads to lower environmental protection requirements, Adolfsson answers:
The idea has always been that there should be no lowered requirements.
Maria Davidsson/TT
Peter Wallberg/TT
Facts: Environmental impact assessments today
TTTT
Today, approximately 6,000 operations require an environmental permit, while 20,000 operations are subject to a notification requirement.
Operations with the greatest environmental impact must apply for a permit from the land and environmental court.
Those with less impact must apply for a permit from the environmental impact assessment delegation at the county administrative board.
Other operations do not require a permit, but must be notified to the municipality.
Source: The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
