2019 monitoring report on public participation in environmentally relevant infrastructure projects
How are citizens and environmental associations involved in the planning and approval of environmentally relevant infrastructure projects? And how accessible are the planning and application documents? The “Monitoring Report 2019” project is dedicated to these and other questions.
The research project provides an important database on the number of formal public participations in approval procedures in the infrastructure sector, their priorities and distribution across the federal states for 2019.
The aim is to create a sound basis for analyzing, discussing and improving the participation procedures and – through the planned annual continuation of the project – to identify long-term trends in the infrastructure sector.
Background:
The legal obligation of the federal government and the federal states to publish planning and approval procedures on the internet, which has been in force since 2017 and effectively since 2018, serves as the starting point for the monitoring report. This is done on a central federal portal and several state portals. The 2018 Monitoring Report shows that by no means all relevant procedures were published on these platforms in 2018. In addition, the entries are often incomplete or unclear. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of the digital availability of information. A complete and comprehensive listing of public participation procedures on the internet platforms is therefore not only required by law and an essential part of the digitalization of environmental administration, but also makes it much easier for citizens to access important environmental information.
The aim of the project:
The Monitoring Report 2019 enables the targeted evaluation of the legally required publication of information on planning approval and planning approval procedures, approval procedures under the Federal Immission Control Act and other approval procedures. On the one hand, it checks whether the competent authorities have published the relevant procedures in full on the portals.
Secondly, a comparison with the 2018 Monitoring Report is used to examine whether the number of official entries has changed compared to 2018 and how the quality of the entries has developed. It also analyzes whether the number of procedures carried out has changed compared to the previous year and whether there have been any other significant changes in public participation in infrastructure projects.
The results of the 2019 Monitoring Report are presented in a clear and easy-to-understand format and made available online free of charge. The aim is to stimulate public debate on improving formal public participation in infrastructure projects and provide well-founded information.
The procedure of the project:
The 2019 Monitoring Report is based on four central steps: Data backup (1), online literature research (2), online query (3) and determination of total number (4).
Step 1: Data backup
The data from the EIA portals is systematically saved and analyzed.
Step 2: Online literature search
In a second step, publicly accessible reports from German environmental associations are evaluated in order to check whether all procedures with public participation are actually listed in the portals. The associations often list the procedures in which they are involved in a given year.
Step 3: Online query
We are also in close contact with representatives of recognized environmental associations, who send us additional information on participation in infrastructure projects.
Step 4: Determining the total number
Thanks to the large number of information sources, it is now possible to make a valid estimate of how many formal public participation procedures for infrastructure projects actually took place in Germany in 2019.
Detailed report:
You can download the detailed 2019 monitoring report by clicking on the button below. The detailed report contains important background information, such as legal and methodological details, as well as further information on the results.
The previous monitoring reports
The Monitoring Report 2018:
The project follows on from the 2018 monitoring report, the results of which are described in detail in the comprehensive report with important background information. In addition, the findings were presented online at a symposium in March 2021 entitled “Public participation in Germany – ten years after the events of Stuttgart 21” and discussed with the participating participation experts from the authorities, academia and the NGO sector. The project is funded by the Heidehof Stiftung GmbH.