The State of the Environment Report is one of the fundamental environmental protection documents of the Republic of Croatia. The Report gives an overview and evaluation of the country's overall state of the environment, including the assessment of the effectiveness of environmental measures implemented in the observed period.
Legal framework and the process of preparing the State of the Environment Report of the Republic of Croatia
The preparation of the State of the Environment Report is laid down by the Environmental Protection Act (Official Gazette Nos. 82/94, 128/99). The Report is submitted by the Government of the Republic of Croatia to the Croatian Parliament every four years and presented for endorsement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction (MEPPPC).
The Report is prepared on the basis of available environmental data and it gives an evaluation of the current and an assessment of the future state. In this way the monitoring of the effectiveness of implemented individual environmental policy measures at the national level is ensured. Thus the State of the Environment Report becomes both an important tool in planning environmental policies and an indicator of the necessity to incorporate environmental protection principles into development and strategic documents of other sectors, such as agriculture, tourism, energy, etc.
The purpose of the Report is to present "data on the country's state of the environment, data on impacts of individual developments on the environment and all other adverse impacts on the environment, the evaluation of implemented measures and their effectiveness, a review of the accomplishment of objectives of the Environmental Strategy and Programme, evaluation of the control carried out, information on fines imposed and on the use of funds intended for environmental protection, an estimation of the need to prepare new or modify and supplement the existing documents, including such other data that are of relevance to environmental protection." (Official Gazette No. 82/94).
The State of the Environment Report of the Republic of Croatia, 2007
Despite the statutory obligation to prepare the reports every four years, the last official state of the environment report dates back from 1998, because the 2002 report was not presented for endorsement by the Croatian Parliament. Given the length of the period not covered by the report and given the fact that the 1998 Report was not based on environmental indicators, the present Report covers the period from 1997 to August, or rather December 2005 inclusively in case of important legislative measures. In cases when relevant data were available, the trends until 1990 were presented too.
In other words, this is the first national report based on environmental indicators as an efficient form of monitoring changes and accomplishment of objectives set by sectoral policies and strategies according to standard EEA (European Environment Agency) indicator typology. The Report consists of five sections: Section 1 – Sectoral Pressures, Section 2 – Environmental Components, Section 3 – General Environmental Issues, Section 4 – Conclusion and Section 5 – Annexes, making a total of 22 chapters.
The State of the Environment Report is also important in light of a specific moment regarding the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the EU and will surely represent one of the essential bases for the assessment of the state of the environment in future negotiations.
The first Draft Report was submitted to the MEPPPC in January 2006. After reviewing the document the Croatian Environment Agency received comments of the Administration for Protection of Nature, the Directorate for Strategic Integration Processes and the Environmental Council. The comments were reviewed and incorporated into the final Draft Report submitted to the MEPPPC in November 2006. In January 2007 the Ministry passed the same to the government bodies and state administration organizations for consideration.
By the end of February 2007 the Croatian Environment Agency received from MEPPPC integrated opinions and comments given by government bodies and state administration organizations. The comments were reconsidered, the text was amended and the final Draft Report submitted to the Ministry on 5 March 2007, which then presented the same to the Government of the Republic of Croatia for endorsement. At the session held on 12 April 2007 the Government adopted the State of the Environment Report of the Republic of Croatia and passed it to the Croatian Parliament for endorsement. Pursuant to Article 80 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and Article 122 of the Rules of Procedure of the Croatian Parliament, at the 25th session held on 25 May 2007 the Croatian Parliament took the decision (Class No. 351-02/07-01/03, File No. 6511-07-06) to adopt the State of the Environment Report of the Republic of Croatia for 2007.