To advance its Smart Regulation policy the European Commission has initiated a Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT). As part of the REFIT Programme a Fitness Check of EU Nature legislation has been launched. The Fitness Check focuses on the Birds and Habitats Directives with a view to assessing their overall performance and legitimacy.

Both Directives were initially developed in response to strong concerns from European society over the loss of biodiversity in Europe. It is therefore seen as important that European citizens have an opportunity to provide their views on whether the current EU Nature legislation remains ‘fit for purpose’. For this purpose an online public consultation was launched on 30 April 2015, providing all interested parties throughout the European Union with an opportunity to give their opinion on EU Nature legislation and its implementation. Responses to the questionnaire can be submitted until 24 July 2015.

The results of the online consultation will be published in autumn 2015. They will give an overview of public perception of the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value of the EU’s Nature legislation. The results will further contribute to an overall Fitness Check report, which is due to be issued in early 2016.

Further information on the public consultation, including the questionnaire, can be found on the DG Environment website.

IEEP is part of a consortium, led by Milieu and with ICF and Ecosystems Ltd, that is currently assisting the Commission on collecting and assessing evidence to support the Fitness Check process.

For more information on the Fitness Check and IEEP’s work on biodiversity conservation, please contact Graham Tucker (gtucker@ieep.eu)