Integration of scientific advances in the European environmental legislation

A series of conferences on the theme "Science meets legislation in Europe" organized in 1998 highlighted the difficulties of establishing links between science and legislation , in particular:

• legislation cannot be developed without a solid knowledge base;

• the legislative process cannot deal with problems identified by science;

• science cannot take into account (and therefore respond to) urgent legislative needs;

• the results of scientific research are not necessarily oriented towards legislative applications;

• inappropriate communication prevents bridges from being built between the scientific and legislative worlds.

At the same time, the development and implementation of legislation represents one of the growing challenges for the private sector, NGOs, citizens' associations and professional organizations, who are under pressure to access information on scientific facts linked to legislative guidelines. The trend towards an "evidence-based" approach now requires a more sophisticated and structured use of science. In this respect, as discussed below, the interface between science and legislation is seen as an increasing necessity by legislators.

Over the last decade, significant advances have reflected a growing awareness of the need to improve the role that science plays in the environmental legislative process . Nevertheless, many barriers remain to be resolved to enable science to contribute fully to the development of robust legislation. These barriers can be grouped into six categories:

• 1. Communication and mutual understanding between the legislative and scientific communities: the worlds of legislators and scientists have different cultures, languages, motivations and constraints. A lack of understanding of these differences can lead to a breakdown in communication. A particular challenge is to communicate uncertainties and differences of opinion.

• 2. Links between legislative needs and research programs: the mapping of correspondences between research framework programs (funded by the European Union) and environmental...