The new Environmental Impact Assessment Act (UVPG) came into force on 29 July 2017. Many colleagues who deal with environmental assessments are currently asking themselves various questions about interpretations and practical application.

For this reason, it was decided at the last meeting of the bdla Landscape Planning Working Group to follow a good tradition and to hold a workshop discussion on the topic of "Requirements for the new EIA report", which is open to members and free of charge. This will take place in connection with the next nationwide working group on 12 January 2018 in Kassel. If you are interested, please send an informal registration by e-mail to the bdla federal office (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

The questions in consequence of the new legal basis concern, among other things, the user-friendliness of the UVPG as well as the practical implementability of (legal) requirements in planning practice without resource-consuming "learning by doing". It remains to be seen to what extent the application of the modernised law will meet the expectations of planning and administrative practice in the future, but it is already worth taking a closer look at some aspects of the amendment - the workshop discussion is intended to serve this purpose.

In the opinion of many colleagues involved in environmental assessments, the frequently expressed view that the information to be provided for the EIA report, which is now defined in §16 UVPG and specified and supplemented in Annex 4, is merely of a clarifying nature and essentially does not entail any changes or additional work for planning practice, cannot be accepted. Rather, it will be necessary to analyse, for example, which new legal regulations are not merely clarifications of a practised and established practice.

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