(1)

Decision (EU) 2022/591 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) established the 8th Environment Action Programme and confirmed that monitoring, including through the provision of sound information related to environmental change, is essential for the development of effective policy, for the implementation of such policy to reach the environmental objectives of the Union, and for the empowerment of citizens. Instruments, such as environmental economic accounts, should be developed with a view to enhancing general awareness of the effects of socioeconomic activities on the environment and the contribution of the environment to the economy and to well-being.

(2)

Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) provides that the Commission is to report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the implementation of that Regulation and, if appropriate, taking into account the findings of the pilot studies referred to in that Regulation, to propose the introduction of new environmental economic account modules, such as environmentally related transfers (subsidies), forest accounts and ecosystem services accounts.

(3)

The new environmental economic account modules are to contribute directly to the Union’s environmental policy priorities as laid down in, inter alia, the 8th Environment Action Programme.

(4)

The United Nations Statistical Commission adopted the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Central Framework as an international statistical standard at its 43rd session in February 2012 and the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), Chapters 1 to 7, which describe the accounting framework and the physical accounts, at its 52nd session in March 2021. The new modules introduced by this Regulation are in line with the SEEA Central Framework and the SEEA EA. Moreover, the SEEA has implemented the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water), which supports the SEEA Central Framework.

(5)

In order to carry out its tasks under the Treaties and international law, especially those related to the environment, sustainability and climate change, the Union should have relevant, comprehensive and reliable information. Evidence-based decision-making requires statistics that meet high-quality criteria, as set out in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4). Furthermore, it is necessary that the Commission (Eurostat) present the collected data in a more accessible and user-friendly way, while actively promoting those data.

(6)

In order to achieve the objective of climate neutrality in the Union by 2050, it is essential to align all Union legal acts and processes with the Union’s long-term environmental and climate objectives as established under the European Green Deal, Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) and the ‘Fit for 55’ package. Several Union legal acts already require close monitoring of trends and, thereby, additional and more precise data. In that respect, it is essential to gather relevant and detailed data from Member States about their environmental investments to make sure that the Union is on track to meet the objectives of the European Green Deal. For all those reasons, the system of European environmental economic accounts is to be developed into a comprehensive tool providing significant additional data for monitoring the implementation of Union environmental law and environmental policymaking.

(7)

The 8th Environment Action Programme calls for establishing, without delay, a binding Union framework to monitor and report on Member States’ progress towards phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, based on an agreed methodology, and setting a deadline at Union, national, regional and local level for the phasing out of such subsidies consistent with the ambition of limiting global warming to 1,5 oC, the long term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In that respect, the Commission should pay special attention to that topic in its programme for pilot and feasibility studies and assess the quality of the data available on energy subsidies, including fossil fuel subsidies. The Commission should, if appropriate, submit a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council with a view to introducing a module on energy subsidies, including fossil fuel subsidies, into the European environmental economic accounts.

(8)

Water is a crucial resource and therefore it is necessary to ensure the sustainable management of that resource and to understand its relationship with economic activity. The Commission should therefore assess the quality of the data available on water and submit, if appropriate, a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council with a view to introducing a module on water into the European environmental economic accounts.

(9)

Adaptation is a key component of the long-term global response to climate change. It is necessary to address the growing climate-related risks to health, including more frequent and intense heatwaves, wildfires and floods, food and water safety and security threats, and the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. The adverse effects of climate change can potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of Member States. Therefore, Member States and the Union should enhance their adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change, as provided for in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement, as well as maximise the co-benefits with other policies and legal acts. Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 requires that Member States adopt comprehensive national adaptation strategies and plans based on robust climate change and vulnerability analyses, progress assessments and indicators, while guided by the best available and most recent scientific evidence. As it is necessary to monitor progress towards climate change adaptation, the Commission should assess the quality of the data available on climate change adaptation. Based on the results obtained, the Commission should, if appropriate, submit a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council with a view to introducing a module on climate change adaptation into the European environmental economic accounts.

(10)

Biodiversity loss is among the key vulnerabilities faced by economies, together with and amplified by climate change. Biodiversity is crucial for food security, human well-being and overall resilience of societies and economies. Member States and the Union should therefore enhance their response to the biodiversity crisis in line with their international commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted by the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations.

(11)

Ecosystem accounts, as a means to present data on the extent and condition of ecosystem assets and the services they provide to society and the economy, aim to put a value on nature, allowing the costs to nature to be better taken into consideration. The aim of establishing monetary values should be to raise visibility on the cost of non-action and to support the Union to achieve its environmental objectives. In order to adequately prepare for the introduction of reporting requirements for monetary values of ecosystem services, it should be preceded by pilot and feasibility studies, taking into consideration the relevant international standards. Those studies should aim to investigate, inter alia, the monetary values to be reported, the relations between those values and the changes in the existing supply and use of ecosystem services, the potential policy uses of the results of the different estimation methods, the conditions under which the estimates are fit for aggregation with one another and with other national accounting aggregates, and the most suitable format of the tables for reporting. In order to deliver its intended effects fully, the Commission should carry out an assessment of methodological possibilities and the feasibility of monetary measurement of ecosystem services, taking into consideration the SEEA EA. Based on the results obtained, it should be possible for the Commission to submit a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 in order to include the monetary ecosystem accounts.

(12)

In its conclusions of 6 November 2020 on European statistics, the Council encouraged the European statistical system to respond to the emerging information demands from the European Green Deal, including as regards the review and enlargement of the programme of European environmental economic accounts.

(13)

In 2019, the European Court of Auditors published special report No 16/2019 entitled ‘European Environmental Economic Accounts: usefulness for policymakers can be improved’. That report points to a need for more complete data on forests and ecosystems and for full implementation of forest accounts.

(14)

The Commission (Eurostat) and the national statistical institutes and other national authorities responsible for producing environmental economic accounts should strive to continuously extend the coverage and improve the quality of statistical data that support the monitoring and evaluation of the Union’s progress in implementing legislative acts adopted under the ‘Fit for 55’ package and in line with the European Green Deal, Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, the Resilience and Recovery Facility established by Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6) and other relevant legal acts, as well as in compliance with the Union’s international commitments, while taking into consideration international statistical standards developed by the United Nations and other bodies.

(15)

Since 2011 the European environmental economic accounts have delivered high-quality data and statistics to support evidence-based policymaking in the areas of the European Green Deal and other Union policies. It is of key importance to publish and present those data and statistics in an understandable and accessible way for all users. The Commission (Eurostat) should develop and maintain a statistical data portal summarising the key indicators from environmental economic accounts in a user-friendly way. Access to that data portal should be public and free of charge. The statistical data portal should aim to improve the dissemination and communication of European environmental economic accounts. It should also not interfere with the governance mechanisms established to report and monitor progress towards the objectives and targets of specific Union initiatives, such as the 8th Environment Action Programme.

(16)

In order to ensure flexibility and to reduce the administrative burden on respondents, national statistical institutes and other national authorities, Member States should be allowed to use other relevant sources, methods and innovative approaches, such as Earth observation (Copernicus Services). Member States should inform the Commission and provide details as regards the quality of those approaches.

(17)

Member States should be able to receive financial support for the modernisation and improvement of the quality and timeliness of environmental statistics and for the implementation of pilot and feasibility studies from the Single Market Programme established by Regulation (EU) 2021/690 of the European Parliament and of the Council (7). In the context of subsequent multiannual financial frameworks, financial support should be provided in accordance with the rules of the applicable European statistical programme referred to in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.

(18)

As the Union comprises 27 Member States, it is appropriate to refer to ‘EU-27’.

(19)

The list of possible future European environmental economic accounts listed in Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 needs to be updated to align it with the current policy priorities of the Union.

(20)

The European System of Accounts 1995 (ESA 95) was replaced by the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010) set up by Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (8).

(21)

ESA 2010 contains the reference framework of common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of the Member States for the statistical requirements of the Union.

(22)

The Commission, in close cooperation with the Member States, should publish a methodological handbook, which contains supplementary guidance concerning the compilation of the environmental economic accounts set up in the different modules introduced by this Regulation. The handbook should include guidelines for the calculation of the forest account characteristics, such as the net annual increment of timber from live tree stock or the calculation of the ecosystem provisioning services, such as the contribution to the global climate regulation from the reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations. The handbook should be published following the entry into force of this Regulation.

(23)

Climate change mitigation, including related investments, is indispensable to achieve the objective of climate neutrality in the Union by 2050. The Commission (Eurostat) should start to regularly provide data and statistics compiled from relevant data available from the environmental economic account modules and, if appropriate, from other data sources. Those data should be broken down by Member State and cover all sectors of the economy relevant for climate change mitigation.

(24)

In order to take account of environmental, economic and technical developments, where necessary, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission to supplement Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 by providing methodological guidance, and to amend Annexes I to IX to that Regulation as regards the list of characteristics for which data are to be compiled and transmitted, in particular Annex V, Section 3, to include characteristics regarding other investments on climate change mitigation. The Commission should ensure that its delegated acts do not impose a significant additional burden on the Member States or on the respondents. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making (9). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.

(25)

Implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission to adopt implementing acts granting, within a specified time period, derogations to Member States in so far as major adaptions to their national statistical systems are required. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (10).

(26)

Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the introduction of new environmental economic account modules into the legal framework for European statistics on environmental economic accounts, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of consistency and comparability, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on the European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

(27)

The European Statistical System Committee has been consulted.

(28)

Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 should therefore be amended,

(1)

Article 1 is replaced by the following:

(*1)  Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p. 1).’;"

(2)

in Article 2, the following points are added:

;

(3)

Article 3 is amended as follows:

(4)

Article 4 is amended as follows:

(5)

in Article 5, paragraph 2 is amended as follows:

(6)

Article 8 is replaced by the following:

(7)

the following article is inserted:

(*2)  Regulation (EU) 2021/690 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 April 2021 establishing a programme for the internal market, competitiveness of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises, the area of plants, animals, food and feed, and European statistics (Single Market Programme) and repealing Regulations (EU) No 99/2013, (EU) No 1287/2013, (EU) No 254/2014 and (EU) No 652/2014 (OJ L 153, 3.5.2021, p. 1).’;"

(8)

Article 9 is replaced by the following:

(9)

the following article is inserted:

(10)

Article 10 is amended as follows:

(11)

in Annex IV, Section 3, first paragraph, the eighth indent is deleted;

(12)

all references to ‘EU-28’ and to ‘ESA 95’ are replaced by ‘EU-27’ and by ‘ESA 2010’, respectively, throughout the text and the Annexes;

(13)

Annexes VII, VIII and IX are added in accordance with the Annex to this Regulation.