EU adopts rules to better measure the environment’s contribution to the economy

On 5 November, the Council formally adopted the amended regulation on European environmental economic accounts, the EU’s common statistical system which brings together economic and environmental information.

The new rules extend the scope of the European environmental economic accounts, introducing forest accounts, ecosystem accounts, and environmental subsidies accounts.

The amended regulation aims to provide better information for the European Green Deal, in order to support monitoring and evaluation of the EU’s progress in meeting its environmental objectives.

New account modules

The current regulation on European environmental economic accounts sets out a common framework for collecting, compiling, transmitting and evaluating European environmental economic accounts. The regulation contains six modules, including air emissions accounts and environmentally related taxes.

Relevant and detailed data from member states is key to keeping the EU on track to meet the European Green Deal objectives. Therefore, the new regulation introduces three new environmental account modules for more comprehensive monitoring:

• ecosystem accounts, which provide data on the extent and condition of ecosystems and on the services delivered to society and the economy by ecosystem assets
• forest accounts, which specifically measure forest areas and the share available for timber extraction, and trace changes over time
• environmental subsidies, which identify and quantify resources that support the Green Deal through economic activities and products, protecting the environment and safeguarding natural resources

Member states will start reporting these data to the Commission (Eurostat) in 2025 and 2026.

Statistical data portal

The amended regulation introduces a new statistical data portal (statistical dashboard) for environmental economic accounts, which will summarise the key indicators and data from those accounts in an understandable and accessible way for all users. It will also contain data on climate change mitigation investments by member states.

The data portal will be operated by the Commission (Eurostat) from December 2024 and will be updated once a year. It will be publicly available on the Eurostat website.

Next steps

This formal adoption marks the last step in the ordinary legislative procedure. The regulation will now be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will enter into force 20 days after its publication.

By 31 December 2024 and at least every two years thereafter, Eurostat will publish data and statistics on climate change mitigation, including on related investments.

Within two years from the date of entry into force of the regulation, the Commission will present a report on the quality of the data available on energy subsidies, including fossil fuel subsidies, on climate change adaptation and on water, and may submit a legislative proposal to introduce a further three new modules on these issues.

Background

The current regulation on environmental economic accounts already includes six modules: air emissions accounts, environmental taxes by economic activity, economy-wide material flow accounts, environmental protection expenditure accounts, environmental goods and services sector accounts, and physical energy flow accounts.

The existing rules provided for new modules to be introduced later based on Commission proposals; on 11 July 2022, the Commission adopted the relevant proposal.

On 15 December 2022, the Council agreed on its negotiating mandate. After one trilogue on 5 December 2023 and several technical meetings, the European Parliament and the Council agreed on the final shape of the regulation.

Further information: Council of the European Union