Environment European Agency

Update: 14/11/2003

The European Environment Agency was established by Council Regulation (EEC) No 1210/90 of 7 May 1990. It came into force in 1994 and was amended by Council Regulation (EC) N. 933/1999 of 29 April 1999, that aimed the Agency activity at supporting the sustainable development politics. EEA mandate consists in supplying the public and the decision makers with specific up to grade and reliable information, in order to allow the formulation and implementation of the enviroment politics in the European Union and in the other EEA member States. For this purpose, the EEA organizes its activities in the following main areas:

Network activities
The purpose is to create interconnected instruments to capture and process environmental data at pan-European level, through the creation of the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET) and the cooperation with international organization and programmes.

Monitoring and reporting activities.
One of the main activities of the EEA is aimed at realizing a reliable, simple and efficient monitoring system, producing environment reports containing uniform and comparable data and integrated environment assessment.

European reference point.
The EEA facilitates the enviroment intervention in the environmental field as a centre of excellence and as a clearing house of environmental data and information, fostering the harmonisation of the measurement methods and providing homogeneous criteria of evaluation.

Political action support.
One of the main EEA functions is to assure an easy access to the information that the decision makers may need in the European institutions and member States, in order to facilitate the predisposition of new answers and the evaluation of the in force legislation. To carry out its own mandate, the Agency is supported by the European Information and Observation Network (EIONET), consistsing of environmental organisations and institutions working in the member countries.