Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal

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Environmental assessment simplification in Spain:

streamlining or weakening procedures?

Ainhoa González & Iñigo Sobrini

To cite this article: Ainhoa González & Iñigo Sobrini (2023) Environmental assessment
simplification in Spain: streamlining or weakening procedures?, Impact Assessment and Project
Appraisal, 41:3, 190-193, DOI: 10.1080/14615517.2023.2170094

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2023.2170094

Published online: 24 Jan 2023.

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IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT APPRAISAL
2023, VOL. 41, NO. 3, 190–193
https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2023.2170094

Environmental assessment simplification in Spain: streamlining or weakening

procedures?
a
Ainhoa González and Iñigo Sobrinib
a
School of Geography, University College Dublin, Ireland; bICMA - Ingenieros Consultores de Medio Ambiente, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The Spanish government has made concerted efforts to simplify environmental assessment Received 2 November 2022
processes. In the case of the ‘simplified’ Strategic Environmental Assessment approach, this has Accepted 14 January 2023
been done with the objective of streamlining processes and resources, so that plans and KEYWORDS
programmes, or their modifications, that are considered to potentially have insignificant or Strategic environmental
negligible environmental effects are not subject to a full assessment. In contrast, the recently assessment; environmental
introduced ‘environmental effects determination procedure’ for renewable projects has the impact assessment;
purpose of speeding up project approval processes in response to energy security challenges simplified procedures;
with a resulting potential risk of weakening assessment procedures and debilitating environ­ benefits and limitations
mental protection. Simplification attempts should not only comply with legal mandates but
proactively foster environmentally-sound, participatory and transparent decisions.

1. Simplification in the Spanish environmental assessments is very different across

environmental assessment system
The Spanish Constitution (Spanish Parliament 1978)
delegates the competence in environmental matters
to the autonomic regions. Nevertheless, the overarch­
ing legislative framework for environmental protec­
tion, established by Law 21/2013 on environmental
assessment (Spanish Parliament 2013), and its subse­
quent modifications, set that the environmental
assessment responsibility for plans, programmes and
projects developed or approved by the central govern­
ment (executive departments) remains in the environ­
mental department of the central government. For all
the other plans, programmes and projects, environ­
mental assessment is implemented at regional level,
where higher protection levels can be established,
ensuring they do not contradict, ignore, reduce or
limit the protection principles established in the
national legislation. Interestingly, there is no clause in
Law 21/2013 that enforces the intended environmen­
tal integration pursued by the European Strategic
Environmental Assessment (SEA) (EC, 2001) and
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (EC, 2014)
Directives; it is down to the motivation of the respon­
sible planning authority or autonomic region’s specific
legislation to promote integration. While some auto­
nomic regions have strengthened environmental pro­
tection requirements and measures thus expanding
rather than reducing the need and the scope of assess­
ments, particularly for EIA (Box 1), others have just
directly transposed the conditions of national law. As
a result, the implementation (and effectiveness) of
the regions; although it is more homogeneous in
terms of SEA than EIA. In all cases, broadly speaking,
the Spanish government’s efforts to streamline both
SEA and EIA processes have been persistent.
Attempts to simplify the evaluation of plans and
programmes pertinent to SEA processes, for instance,
are evident in Law 21/2013. Depending on its level and
scope, or as a result of a specific request of the com­
petent authority, a plan/programme can be assessed
through 1) an ‘ordinary’ SEA process, which is the
equivalent of a common SEA in other European coun­
tries; or 2) via a ‘simplified’ SEA which applies to minor
modifications of plans/programmes (that would be
initially subject to the ‘ordinary’ SEA) and to plans/
programmes that establish the use of small areas at
the municipal level. The key reasons behind the devel­
opment of a ‘simplified’ SEA approach are the stream­
lining of procedures and resources, so that plans and
programmes, or their modifications, that are consid­
ered to potentially have insignificant or negligible
environmental effects are not subject to a full
assessment.
In the case of a ‘simplified’ SEA, a request for such
a simplified assessment must be accompanied by the
draft plan/programme and a strategic environmental
document that outlines the key issues (in a similar
manner to a scoping report) and that justifies the
simplified approach. Based on the provided informa­
tion, the environmental authority consults the affected
public administrations and interested parties/public,
integrating any feedback on a Strategic
Environmental Report (SER). This approach omits,

CONTACT Ainhoa González ainhoa.gonzalez@ucd.ie School of Geography, University College Dublin, Ireland
© 2023 IAIA
 IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT APPRAISAL 191

Box 1. Example of autonomic law extending Environmental Impact Assessment requirements.

Spanish Law 21/2013 on environmental protection determines that solar energy projects that are not located on existing roofs and that
occupy more than 100ha of surface area or more than 10ha when they are located in protected areas such as Natura 2000 sites are
subject to EIA.
Law 6/2015 on environmental protection for the autonomic region of Extremadura (Autonomous Community of Extremadura, 2015)
establishes that solar energy projects that are not located on existing roofs and that occupy more than 50ha of surface area or more
than 5ha when they are located in protected sites are subject to EIA.

among other things, the need to prepare a full strate­
gic environmental study and the requirement for
a second stakeholder consultation and public informa­
tion window of the ‘ordinary’ SEA process. This ‘simpli­
fied’ process derives into: (i) a recommendation for an
‘ordinary’ SEA (in those cases where the simplified
assessment is found not to be appropriate or satisfac­
tory in identifying and/or addressing key environmen­
tal issues, or where a significant issue has been
identified through the process); or (ii) in the environ­
mental approval of the plan/programme.
In the context of EIA for projects, significant legisla­
tive modifications have been recently introduced
through Law 6/2022 (Spanish Parliament 2022a), in
response to the socio-economic consequences of the
Ukrainian war and the need to expedite renewable
energy projects, also referring to the RePowerEU plan
as a motivator. The new legislation is set to streamline
the assessment and, in doing so, abridge the approval
process of solar and wind energy development pro­
jects that are authorised by the central government,
which are precisely the larger ones, albeit within cer­
tain thresholds (Box 2).
For this type of projects, Law 6/2022 formally
removes the need of a mandatory EIA and replaces
it with an environmental screening prior to the con­
siderations of any EIA requirements, superseding the
requirements of the European EIA Directive and Law
21/2013 on environmental assessment. It introduces
a new so-called ‘environmental effects determination
procedure for renewable energy projects’, which
markedly diverges from the normal EIA procedure,
yet it requires the preparation of an environmental
impact study with the contents stablished in Law 21/
2013 for an ordinary EIA (Box 3). Environmental
authorities in central Government have insisted on
making clear that this new procedure is not an EIA,
but rather a new environmental protection tool, with
the only goal of reducing planning approval require­
ments and times. The main difference between this
new impact determination procedure and EIA is that
there is no requirement for public consultation,
which halts the opportunity for public engagement
in project planning and approval processes. In addi­
tion, the new approach fosters the application of
assessment methods that are not designed to appro­
priately and effectively identify the potential for sig­
nificant effects. For example, screening within this
new simplified procedure solely depends on an
environmental zoning categorisation carried out by
the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the
Demographic Challenge (MITECO 2022), based on
the potential sensibility of the territory to renewable
projects; this zoning was developed on the basis of
a methodology and criteria that was not specifically
designed to take account of large-scale develop­
ments. More importantly, this legislative amendment
(which applies to large scale projects with an energy
output greater than 50 MW) introduces discrepancies
between approval processes managed by the central
Government and those processed by the autonomic
regions (i.e. smaller than 50 MW). Renewable energy
projects which are considerably bigger both in capa­
city and potential impacts are subject to the new
simplified procedure; smaller projects approved by
the regions are subject to full EIA.
At the time of writing, there are 301 projects (195
solar, 82 wind, 13 solar/wind, and 11 marine wind
farms) being assessed by the central Government
(MITECO, pers. comm.). With Law 6/2022 implemented
in May 2022, 123 of these projects have requested
a simplified EIA process, 109 of which had already

Box 2. Projects affected by Law 6/2022.

Photovoltaic projects from 50 to 150 MW, and wind farms from 50 to 75 MW that are:
● Not located in Natura 2000 sites or offshore;
● Located within low sensitivity zones according to the ‘environmental zoning for renewable energy developments’ developed by the
Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO); and
● Not encompassing of voltage evacuation lines with tension equal or bigger than 220kV and longer than 15km.
192 A. GONZÁLEZ AND I. SOBRINI

Box 3. Characteristics of the new ‘environmental impact determination procedure for renewable energy projects’.

The procedure for determining environmental effects will be carried out in accordance with the following procedures:
a) The promoter must submit the following documentation for approval to the substantive body:
● Request for environmental impact determination procedure for renewable energy projects;
● Draft of project proposal;
● Environmental impact study with the contents stablished in Law 21/2013 for an ordinary EIA;
● Executive summary that must concisely address the main environmental effects of the project based on the following criteria:
○ Effect on Natura 2000 sites, on protected areas and their peripheral protection zones, and on habitats of community interest.
○ Effect on biodiversity, in particular on catalogued protected or threatened species.
○ Effects resulting from discharges into public water channels or coastal waters.
○ Effects resulting from waste generation.
○ Effects resulting from the use of natural resources.
○ Effects on cultural heritage.
○ Socio-economic effects on the territory.
○ Synergistic effects with other nearby projects, particularly with those located 10Km or less from wind farms, 5Km from photovoltaic
development sites and 2Km from power lines. If the documentation is complete, the substantive body will send the documentation to the
environmental authority within 10 days.
b) In view of the documentation, the environmental authority will assess whether the proposed project will foreseeably result in significant
adverse effects on the environment, and will prepare an ‘environmental impact determination report’, which will be sent to the
competent regional body in environmental matters, which will have a period of 10 days to submit any observations. After this period, the
lack of response will be considered as acceptance of the content of the report.
c) In all cases, the environmental authority will finalise the report within a maximum period of two months from receipt of the documentation.
The report will determine whether the project can continue with the planning approval process as is because no significant adverse effects
on the environment are anticipated, or whether, on the contrary, the project must be subject to EIA in accordance with Law 21/2013.
The report may also determine measures to mitigate or compensate possible environmental effects of the project, as well as conditions
related to the monitoring and surveillance plan of the project. The project will not receive construction or operating authorization if thes
measures are not implemented.

started an ordinary EIA procedure before the new law
came into force. While most of these assessments and
their approval processes are ongoing, with 32 with­
drawn, there has been a determination for 23 cases;
14 of these projects have been approved, subject to
mitigation measures, as no significant impacts were
anticipated, and 9 projects have been required to be
subject to a full EIA.
2. Overview of benefits and limitations
There are a number of positive aspects or benefits that
can be drawn from the simplified environmental
assessment approaches:
● At the time of writing, the number of ‘simplified’
SEAs undertaken across the Spanish territory is
larger than that of ‘ordinary’ SEAs, reducing eco­
nomic and staff resource requirements as well as
the administrative burden for plan/programme
approval.
● This ‘simplified’ SEA approach expedites approval
processes for plans/programmes with limited/no
significant environmental effects.
● The ‘environmental effects determination proce­
dure’, which arguably is equivalent to
a ‘simplified’ EIA, can also expedite renewable
energy project approval at a time when energy
security and climate crisis demand a rapid and
proactive response to their deployment.
There are also several undesirable consequences
resulting from these simplified approaches, particularly
at project level which arguably outweigh the positive
ones identified above:
● Potential issues of alignment and compliance
with European SEA and EIA legislation, which
can result in legal challenges.
● Inconsistency and misalignments on environmen­
tal assessment procedures across administrative
regions, facilitated by the right of autonomic
regions to implement environmental assessment
procedures but exacerbated by new legislative
developments, which ultimately impact on effec­
tiveness, transparency and governance.
● Varying and imbalanced pressures on staff and
financial resources, particularly where a window
of only 10 days is provided to respond to a poten­
tially large documentation.
● Such pressures also manifest in the context of the
‘environmental effects determination’ procedure
where regional competencies with smaller capa­
city are required to comply with ordinary EIA
approaches for renewable energy projects while
central government can process these through
simplified procedures.
● Authoritative approaches that overlook the need
for public input and the principles of the Aarhus
Convention, and that can result in impoverished
and opaque decisions; this is particularly the case
for “environmental effects determination’

approaches where the need for public participa­
tion and input is removed.
● Higher risk of environmental impact and potential
detrimental effects on the environment for sim­
plified approaches, resulting from shortened
timeframes, potential oversight of cumulative
effects and unforeseen effects, and lack of effec­
tive consultation.
● Requirement for additional mitigation measures
by the consenting authority in order to address
uncertainty (resulting from simplified assess­
ments and documentation).
3. Concluding remarks
Concerted efforts to simplify environmental assess­
ment procedures in Spain can be considered both
plausible and desirable when they have attempted to
streamline assessment requirements and lessen pres­
sures on personnel/financial resources, as it is the case
with the ‘simplified’ SEA approach applicable to plans
and programmes not anticipated to have significant
environmental effects. But also irrational and inap­
propriate when trying to bypass EIA procedures
through the ‘environmental impact determination’
approach that eliminates public consultation.
Arguably, this approach weakens the environmental
assessment process by reducing environmental inte­
gration into project planning and implementation, and
by increasing the risk of significant environmental
effects. Moreover, at the time of writing, a new Law
20/2022 (Spanish Parliament 2022b) that aims to
supersede Law 6/2022 is under parliamentary review.
This new legislative modification would further
weaken impact assessment procedures for renewable
energy projects by removing the specific application
characteristics of wind and photovoltaic projects
detailed in Box 2 – that is, it would apply to all renew­
able energy projects notwithstanding any project size
or location.
The value of environmental assessment lays on its
capacity to bring environmental issues to the forefront,
provide a forum for engaging with all affected stake­
holders, and effectively integrate environmental con­
siderations into decision-making for environmental
protection and sustainable development. Any
attempts for simplification should not only comply
with legal mandates, but proactively foster these prin­
ciples to ensure that both the purpose and effective­
ness of environmental assessment procedures are
optimised. This entails, among other things, not disre­
garding the opportunity and value for stakeholder
insights and input, the required time for document
review and submissions, and the imperative need for
placing the environment at the heart of any future
decisions and developments, arguably ahead of socio-
IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT APPRAISAL 193
economic demands, given growingly pressing global
challenges. Any simplification efforts must not under­
mine the key role that environmental assessment plays
in fostering environmentally-sound and evidence-
based outcomes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
author(s).
ORCID
Ainhoa González http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9334-3066
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