About
ESIA SEE – Environment Social Impact Assessment South East Europe
ESIA SEE – Sustainable Responsibility project aims to promote the importance of Environment package of EU standards with focus on ESIA obligation in all major infrastructure, energy, mining projects in the region of South East Europe.
The SEA Directive (Strategic Environmental Assessment) applies to a wide range of public plans and programmes (e.g. on land use, transport, energy, waste, agriculture, mining, chemical etc).
The EIA Directive applies to a wide range of defined public and private projects, which are defined in Annexes I and II aplicable in all SEE countries. The EIA procedure can be summarized as follows: the developer may request the competent authority to say what should be covered by the EIA information to be provided by the developer (scoping stage); the developer must provide information on the environmental impact ; the environmental authorities and the public must be informed and consulted; the competent authority decides, taken into consideration the results of consultations. The public is informed of the decision afterwards and can challenge the decision before the courts.
Social Impact Assessment (SIA) includes the processes of analyzing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences,either positive or negative, of planned interventions and any social change processes invoked by those interventions. The analysis should include the use of land, culture, the main economic activities e.g. tourism, agriculture, employment levels and impact on service provision e.g. education, water use, traffic, energy use etc. Its primary purpose is to bring about a more sustainable and equitable biophysical and human environment. SIA assumes that social, economic and biophysical impacts are interconnected. SIA is therefore done to ensure that there is no mismatch between the development and socio-cultural and economic of the project area.
Strategic environment assessment (SEA) : SEA is refers to systematic analysis of the environmental effects of development policies, plans, programmes and other proposed strategic actions. This process extends the aims and principles of EIA upstream in the decision-making process, beyond the project level and when major alternatives are still open. SEA represents a proactive approach to integrating environmental considerations into the higher levels of decision-making.
Environmental and Social Impact Assessment ESIA is a procedure ensuring that impacts of project performance on environment and social community are taken into account before the decisions on these projects are made.
EIA is a procedure required under the terms of European Union Directives 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC on environmental assessment, and undert the terms of local regulation β Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, Republic of Serbia Official Gazette No135/04. EIA approval is a legal prerequisite for obtaining the construction permit and thereby accompanies preparation of Feasibility Studies and Preliminary Design of the particular plant.
As required by applicable regulations, scoping and screening are performed at early EIA preparation process, ensuring that all the relevant information are made available to the stakeholders.
ESIA SEE project will engage wide circle of stakeholders and various target/dialogue actors and groups in SEE region. NGOs and Investors ( Governments, private investors) will have a joint platform which will serve as a bridge between obligations of the project beneficiaries/investors and interested public and wide stakeholder groups.
ESIASEE NGO Network is managed by Energy Mining Watch South & East Europe (www.EMWSEE.ORG) NGO and its regional SEE partners.