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Stockholm – The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, which brings together 60,000 companies and 49 industry and employer organizations and represents business in Sweden, believes that the environmental assessment processes in the country take too long. The government agrees.
“Simplified and shortened processes are absolutely necessary for Sweden to be able to accelerate the pace of the climate transition,” says the Swedish Minister for Environment and Climate, Romina Pourmokhtari.
A government-appointed investigator has now submitted their report with a number of proposals for a coordinated and uniform environmental assessment process.
Among other things, a new environmental assessment authority is proposed at the first instance, which will take over responsibility from 330 municipalities and authorities.
Swedish law should also be better adapted to EU law. This means, for example, that deadlines are introduced for the process in Sweden and that one consultation with the affected public will suffice instead of the current three.
Two tracks are proposed in the process. A fast track for simpler cases that will only be reviewed, and a permit track for activities and measures that must always be environmentally assessed.
According to the investigator, the average time from when an environmental assessment application is received to when a decision is made is currently 12–18 months. This can be compared with Denmark’s 4–7 months.
With the investigator’s proposals, it is estimated that it will take an average of 3 months from application to decision in simpler cases and 6–10 months in cases where permits must be granted.
The investigator estimates that the proposals can be implemented on January 1, 2028, at the earliest.
(January 21)