COUNTRY REPORTS * CZECH REPUBLIC
The European Agreement concluded between the Czech Republic and the European Union, which came into force on February 1, 1995 obligates the Czech Republic to harmonize existing and new legal provisions, technical standards, and relevant inspection procedures with those of the EU, including those which relate to the entire spectrum of the environmental protection (Articles 81,69,70 and others).
The Minister of the Environment is a non-permanent member of the Association Committee of the Government of the Czech Republic and is responsible for the activities of the Working Group for the Environment. He heads international negotiations within the framework of environmental control.
The Czech Republic is a signatory to most major international agreements and conventions relating to the protection of the environment and it abides by the commitments following therefrom.
The Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic (MZP) is the supreme body of state administration in the field of the environment and its jurisdiction is ruled by law. The ministry performs its jurisdiction through its specialized units, territorial divisions, through departments for the environment at district authorities, as well as through specialist, scientific and research institutes which it establishes and whose activity it helps to fund.
The Czech Inspection for the Environment and the State Environment Fund of the Czech Republic have been established by law, which also governs their jurisdiction. (Act No 282/1991 S.B. of the Czech National Council, on the Czech Inspection for the Environment; its jurisdiction in the protection of forests; and Act No 388/1991 S.B. on the State Environment Fund of the Czech Republic).
The Czech parliament has a committee which is responsible for regional policy and in general terms also deals with the protection of the environment and nature conservation.
The protection of the environment is also dealt with by specialist units operating within the Ministry of Trade and Industry (waste, energy, etc.), the Ministry of Economy (technical standardization, regional and territorial planning), the Ministry of Health (chemicals, noise pollution), the Ministry of Agriculture (ecological optimization of agriculture, forest conservancy, water management), the Ministry of Transport (emissions caused by the operation of motor vehicles), the State Nuclear Safety Authority (radiation protection, radioactive environmental pollution, radioactive waste), as well as in other institutions.
In the Czech Republic there is a wide range of non-governmental organizations and groups whose activities only very seldom have any legislative impact. The said organizations are partly funded by the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic. The role of these organizations should be appreciated mainly as regards their contribution to the enlightenment and education of the general public, even though the standard of their expertise can not always be guaranteed.
Local authorities also have units or authorized personnel dealing with local environmental protection. This is not guided by higher-level bodies of state administration, but by the interests of the municipalities. This may, in fact, be said to be the spontaneous implementation of the EU principle of subsidiary, i.e. there is a visible effort at the local level to efficiently resolve those environmental problems which may be resolved by available means at this level.
Acts of law relating to the protection of the environment which are currently valid in the Czech Republic have, with few exceptions, been drafted and promulgated after the profound social and political changes which took place in this country in 1989.
The Czech Republic has adopted the Act related to the Environment (for details see below) and basic laws concerning the "components" of the environment - the respective laws on air pollution control, on state administration of water management, on waste, on the protection of nature and the landscape, on the protection of the geological environment, and on the protection of the ozone layer. The said laws among others authorize the issuance of legal norms of lower legal validity in the form of implementation decrees, regulations, measures and methodical guidelines.
The essential shortcoming of environmental legislation adopted immediately after the year 1989 was not its content, namely the setting of too low or too high limits of pollution, nor was it the rather slow speed of drafting and subsequent half-hearted implementation of the new laws; but the obscure formulation of responsibility at various levels of administration and the ensuing difficulties in controlling the implementation and observance of the legal norms. Certain temporary limitations of an economic nature have hindered the more emphatic enforcement of highly advanced technologies. However, measures relating to the law on air pollution control already emphasize the need to use the best available technologies for improving air quality.
Specific responsibility for the process of approximating and harmonizing the legal norms of the Czech Republic with EU laws is borne by the individual ministries with the Ministry of the Environment being responsible for environmental protection. The Office for Legislation and Public Administration of the Czech Republic has been authorized to coordinate the process.
The implementation and enforcement of laws is controlled by bodies of state administration, including the State Environmental Inspectorate. Comparative analyses and background studies have been ordered, supervised, carried out, provided and evaluated by the ministries or by other state administration authorities.
An updated and modified version of the state environmental policy of the Czech Republic was adopted in August 1995. The state environmental policy of the Czech Republic puts emphasis on the positive stimulation of activities protecting the environment (funding versus fines), on using economic instruments (taxes, fees, subsidies), on an integrated approach to the protection of the environment as a whole, on the realistic evaluation of environmental damage, on the analysis of the life cycle of products, and on the assessment of the results of this analysis, on suitable international cooperation and on the completion and adoption of the system of laws relating to the environment with special emphasis on the enactment of laws ruling those areas where legal norms are either missing or are incomplete, namely the complex handling of chemicals, the cross-border movement of waste for recycling (secondary raw materials), the handling of genetically modified organisms, and the system of ecological audit and ecological management of enterprises.
The state environmental policy is not a law. It is a pronouncement of the government's sectorial priorities and serves as an action plan and guideline for routine work on the ministerial level. The adoption of the state environmental policy of the Czech Republic is at the same time a commitment to accelerate the legislative process.
The names of all institutions mentioned above, detailed information on their activity, and the English language texts of all cited laws of the Czech Republic relating to environmental protection and conservation may be obtained from the Department of Foreign Relations and the Department for Public Relations of the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic (Vrsovická 65, 100 10 Praha 10).