ECA: European Environmental Economic Accounts - usefulness for policymakers can be improved

10 October 2019

The European Environmental Economic Accounts (EEEA) are an important source of data to monitor and evaluate environmental policies, such as the 7th Environment Action Programme and progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. ECA audited whether the EC set up, managed and used the EEEA well.

The EEEA are a statistical framework consisting of a comprehensive set of tables and accounts describing the relationship between the environment and the EU economy.

The Commission agrees that the EEEA are important for policy makers. The scope of the environmental accounts aims at determining the relationships between the environment and the economy. This is useful and is one of the main application areas.

ECA´s audit showed that the EEEA modules were not used to their full potential for monitoring key environmental policies. Based on ECA´s findings, it recommends that the Commission should improve the strategic framework for EEEA data, the relevance of EEEA modules for environmental policy making, and the timeliness of EEEA data.

Full press release on ECA

Special Report NO 16/2019: European Environmental Economic Accounts: usefulness for policymakers can be improved

 


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