IOGP Europe feedback on the Call for Evidence: Simplification of administrative burden in environmental legislation

IOGP Europe welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the European Commission’s consultation on simplifying administrative burden in environmental legislation. We focus our feedback on permitting, which remains one of the most significant obstacles to timely deployment of clean technologies, industrial decarbonisation projects and critical infrastructure.

Permitting must be recognised as a strategic enabler of the EU’s climate, environmental and competitiveness objectives. However, across the European Union, processes are fragmented, unpredictable, bureaucratic and under-resourced. Lengthy procedures undermine investment certainty, delay projects essential to the energy transition and weaken Europe’s global competitiveness relative to other major jurisdictions.

Simplification and streamlining of permitting procedures is central to achieving the Commission’s ambition of reducing administrative burden by 25% without compromising on environmental standards. This paper concludes with a set of concrete recommendations to simplify permitting procedures, reduce administrative burden and support more efficient, predictable, and coordinated permitting across the EU, while upholding environmental objectives.