REGIONAL OVERVIEW * INTRODUCTION
The mechanisms used to implement environmental regulations were also different to those used in market economies. The principle of a rule of law was not observed due to several exceptions in the enacted law, and its poor execution on a day-to-day basis. In some areas such as air protection, quality standards were set at unattainable levels, thus playing a more political rather than substantial role in the environmental legal system. The system also failed to use adequate economic incentives to ensure compliance with established standards by subsidized state owned businesses. The logic of the legal system was distorted by the fact that the regulator and the regulated were agencies of the same ruling party.
The transition towards a market economy, which began in the countries of the CEE in the early 90-s, faced from the beginning a challenge to change not only the structure of the economy, but also the concept and the role of law. One of the main issues in the CEE region was that the law had to become a common ground for the decentralizing and democratic development of private and competing enterprises. This included not only the content of legal acts, but also a rule of law supported by a strict enforcement of legal regulations. These have marked the progress made towards market-based, democratic societies in the CEE countries.
In the field of environmental regulations, the most difficult, challenging and demanding task in the way of progress is establishing conditions and mechanisms ensuring the rule of law and providing clear rules for players in the environmental field, as well as creating equal opportunities for different competitors. In fact, the level of progress of each individual CEE country should be measured according to its proximity to European Union environmental laws. Thus, a similar concept of law and the role of legal regulations to the EU should be implemented when law drafting in the CEE countries. It is also important to mention that an overview should show just a snapshot comparison of the two sets of legislation, since both of them develop with time. The changes with time in EU legislation relate to issues of harmonization between EU member countries, while the changing legislation in CEE countries relates accordingly to these issues. The level of compliance of a particular EU environmental regulation with an appropriate set of CEE environmental legal acts indicates how written acts are overlapping, reflecting a range of potential practical achievements rather than a declared fixed status in practically achieved levels as a direct result of the enforcement.
The level to which principles embodied in EU legal acts were transposed to CEE environmental regulations was assessed by measuring the compliance of corresponding legal acts. The 33 EU environmental legislation pieces were selected as a reference base for an evaluation of compliance. They were grouped in seven fields according to the structure of EU environmental legislation (from II. to VIII.). An additional field was generated (I.) for the country reports to assess the general importance of basic environmental-related principles in each country's constitutional-level legislation. This field was not analyzed in the regional overview. The list of fields of environmental regulations are as follows:
| Legislative Fields | Bulgaria | Czech Republic | Estonia | Hungary | Latvia | Lithuania | Poland | Romania | Slovak Republic | Slovenia | Average Compliance Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I. Environmental regulations of a constitutional character | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | n.a | - |
| II. General environmental policy regulation | 55 | 77 | 33 | 87 | 22 | 67 | 63 | 38 | 72 | 55 | 57 |
| III. Air | 43 | 60 | 40 | 40 | 23 | 40 | 47 | 37 | 77 | 50 | 46 |
| IV. Chemicals, industrial risks and biotechnology | 27 | 31 | 35 | 14 | 19 | 19 | 33 | 32 | 33 | 23 | 27 |
| V. Nature conservation | 67 | 67 | 33 | 67 | 50 | 67 | 100 | 33 | 100 | 67 | 65 |
| VI. Noise | 50 | 17 | 17 | 50 | 17 | 0 | 50 | 17 | 50 | 50 | 32 |
| VII. Waste | 24 | 56 | 45 | 18 | 14 | 24 | 26 | 21 | 78 | 19 | 33 |
| VIII. Water | 50 | 61 | 72 | 61 | 44 | 56 | 78 | 61 | 78 | 44 | 61 |
| CEE Countries Average Level of Compliance | 46 | ||||||||||
The EU environmental legislation pieces attributed to each field are provided in Annex 1.
Evaluation criteria were developed to measure the level of compliance to each field of EU environmental regulation (from II. - VIII.), with a corresponding set of the selected CEE country's legal environmental regulations. A quantitative evaluation was made based on an expert judgement. Each evaluation criterion was subjected to the following scoring scale:
| Score | Characteristic of the case |
|---|---|
| 0.00 | The country report could not provide any helpful information or the legal system is at such an early stage of development that a particular legal instrument is missing from the country's legal system. |
| 0.33 | The fist steps towards implementing the given legal instrument have already been taken in the country, or there is a comprehensive legal draft in progress or in front of the government or Parliament. |
| 0.67 | The main elements of the examined legal instrument are present in the domestic legal system and it has been developed along a similar line to that of the EU. |
| 1.00 | The given legal instrument is very similar to the respective EU environmental legislation |
The relative importance of different criteria was based on a set of thoroughly discussed expert judgements. The list of the applied criteria, along with the rationale and weights used to adjust the criteria according to their importance from the point of view of the assessed compliance, is appended in Annex 2. A group of environmental regulations of a constitutional character were not quantitatively assessed due to their special character, so the country specific tables can be found only in the country reports. The other seven groups of environmental regulations were assessed indicating the estimated level of compliance with the relevant country's environmental regulations.
The outcome is discussed below. The numeric evaluation of compliance for each field by country is shown in the table "Assessment of the compliance levels of European Union environmental legislation in 10 CEE countries". It should be read and interpreted only as a result of the applied methodology to the information collected in the country reports. The estimated measures refer only to the level of compliance of the content of the compared legal documents. It does not fully reflect progress made in restoring a rule of law in a particular CEE country, or its adjustment to the concept and the role of law applied in the EU. In addition, the level of enforcement of formally transposed legal acts was not specially analyzed. However, it is justified to assume that the transferral of the contents of EU environmental regulations into domestic legal acts must influence the process of change both in the perception of the role of law in civil society and the level of its enforcement.