This report presents the findings of a study of the institutional and legal arrangements in place across European countries, (EU Member States and PHARE countries) for the purposes of reporting on the State of the Environment. The objective of this study is to provide an overview of national legal and institutional arrangements and experiences for State of the Environment (SOE) reporting. The study seeks to separate technical and political issues and to examine objectively the ways that SOE reports function as inputs to the policy process. The review is based on information collected from interviews with representative individuals involved in the publication of State of the Environment Reports in each Member State. In general, only one interview was carried out per country, although we recognize that it is common for there to be several different SOE activities within a single country. It is therefore important to understand that the aim of the Report is to provide an overview of general practices and not to evaluate SOE reporting in individual countries. In particular, the report should not be used to compare specific practices in SOE reporting between countries.

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