E-Government Working Group for Environmental Information in Austria – Moving towards SEIS

Abstract

With the Environmental Information Amendment Act (UIG) 2004 (which entered into force on 14.02.2005), Austria transposed the European Directive 2003/4/EC, which ensued from the Aarhus Convention, at federal level, into national law. “Information providing bodies” of the federal government, as well as the provinces and municipalities, must comply with the new requirements especially within the scope of actively providing environmental information. As the INSPIRE Directive (Annexes I – III) shows, nearly every piece of environmental information has a geographical relevance, which must always be considered when designing environmental information systems according to the requirements of the Environmental Information Directive. According to Art. 10 of the Environmental Information Amendment Act 2004, Umweltbundesamt manages a “Coordination Centre for environmental information“ (KUI). This Coordination Centre assists in the exchange of information between the information providing bodies and proposes suitable measures in order to facilitate access to environmental information for the applicants (i.e. those seeking such information) and henceforth secure the high quality of environmental information. The most urgent function of the Coordination Centre for environmental information is thus the development of “recommendations for structuring available information in compliance with the Directive”. Such systemisation shall ensure that environmental information is progressively made available and disseminated to the public and that this information, according to modern standards and within the meaning of the Recitals and Article 7 of the Directive, shall be made available in particular by electronic information and communication technologies. In order to promote the standardised systemisation of environmental information on Internet portals and to ensure a joint approach for implementing the requirements under the Environmental Information Act 2004, a process of cooperation between the federal government and the provinces (eGovernment process) was initiated within the framework of “platform digital Austria”.