The Government creates a department that will ensure that the investments of the Recovery Plan do not harm the environment

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge will have a new division that will be responsible for monitoring the application of environmental regulations in the deployment of the 69,528 million euros attributed by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, as published this Thursday in the Official State Gazette.

The aim of this division will be to ensure that the deployment of these European funds complies with the EU principle that investments do not cause significant damage to the environment and that predetermined environmental and climate contribution rates are achieved.

The Environmental Enforcement Monitoring Division will report to the Undersecretariat for Ecological Transition and demographic challenge to ensure that the allocation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism drives recovery and achieves maximum countercyclical impact.

This plan establishes that the ecological transition is one of the 6 pillars of action and that the Mechanism should support this principle, contributing to European climate objectives.

However, this division has a vocation for permanence, since according to the BOE, its “time horizon goes far beyond that of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, being in this respect significant the commitments assumed by Spain under the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan, and Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and the Council, of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investments.

In this way, it will be responsible for ensuring that the implementation of public policies does not have direct or collateral effects harmful to the environment, and for accrediting this point before international bodies, and in particular before the European Union.

Among its functions will be advising other Ministries on compliance with the principle of not causing significant harm to the environment and on climate labelling; inform, coordinate and supervise the implementation of public policies in order to bring them into conformity with Spanish environmental policy and Community regulations.

Likewise, it will be responsible for preparing application, execution and monitoring guides, involving the third sector and companies in the implementation of policies in accordance with environmental regulations.

It will also be responsible for training the staff of the department and the rest of the departments of the General State Administration on the preparation of regulations and in the call for subsidies and public tenders in the environmental field.

The Government emphasizes that so far, the Undersecretariat for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, through its Technical Cabinet, has carried out coordination and advisory tasks to all the Departments of the General Administration of the State in compliance with the principle of not causing significant damage and in the requirements of climate labeling.

Its participation in the elaboration of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, ensuring compliance with the environmental requirements of its 30 components and assuming the dialogue with the European Commission in these aspects, has reaffirmed this line of action and at the same time is the trigger for its formalization to be considered necessary for the future, attributing this function to a predetermined and specialized administrative body in the field.

In this way, the Government indicates that the advisory functions should reside in the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge not only for its competences in environmental matters but also for its knowledge and involvement in the negotiation of Regulation (EU) 2020/852, of the European Parliament and of the Council (Taxonomy Regulation), and the issues of mitigation and adaptation to climate change, The sustainability of natural resources, The Government creates a department that will ensure that the investments of the Recovery Plan do not harm the environment, the ecological potential of water bodies, energy, the circular economy, waste or the restoration and conservation of biodiversity.

The Government considers that these functions require specialization of personnel and direct coordination with the Secretaries of State of the Department and the rest of the Ministerial Departments. In this way, it justifies that it is “necessary to create” this division attached to the Undersecretariat of MITECO.

Source: Europe Press