After studying the experience of its legal department in the course of 2005, WWF/Adena has carried out an analysis of the level of response of the General State Administration, the Autonomous Communities and the European Commission to requests for environmental information by this NGO, a right that is contemplated in Directive 2003/4/EC. The main conclusion is that the situation in the application of this community regulation has improved in relation to last year, since more than 81% of the requests for access to environmental information have been granted. This percentage reaches one hundred percent in the case of the Autonomous Communities, which attended to all the requests.

However, one of the negative aspects is the failure to meet deadlines, since the Directive requires applications to be answered within one month. However, according to WWF/Adena, only one in four requests was met within the deadline. A percentage that rises even more in the case of the European Commission and the Autonomous Communities, which did not respond to any request in the established time. The organization points out that this may be due to the fact that the new Directive 2003/4/EC imposed a reduction in deadlines, since previously there were two months to respond.

This non-compliance is what has motivated most of the appeals that the conservation organization has filed. WWF/Adena has appealed more than 48% of the requests because they have not been answered in the month established by the Directive. However, it is noteworthy that the effectiveness of these resources has also improved. In the case of the General State Administration, the required information was obtained in more than 90% of the situations. A percentage that rises, once again, to one hundred percent in the Autonomous Communities. Those that have received the most applications are Valencia, followed by Andalusia.

Juan Carlos del Olmo, Secretary General of WWF/Adena, declares: “The current situation gives us hope, since information and publicity are essential for the participation of citizens in environmental issues and we see that the State Administration and the Autonomous Communities have significantly increased the levels of response”. And it concludes: “In any case, the issue of the response on time is still pending, since during this year only one in four requests has been attended to on time”.