The Single Environmental Permit, regulated by Article 27 of Legislative Decree 152/2006, has the purpose of unifying in a single decision the EIA decision with the issuing of any other authorization, agreement, opinion, concert, permission or environmental assent, required by current legislation for the construction and operation of a project. In particular, within the Single Environmental Permit the following environmental authorizations may be requested:
When submitting the application, the developer has the right to request additional environmental authorizations compulsory for the realization and operation of a project.
The Single Environmental Permit can be requested for all projects subject to an EIA procedure under State jurisdiction.
At State level, the competent authority is the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Directorate - General for Sustainable Growth and Quality of Development.
The Technical Committee of Environmental Impact Assessment - SEA and EIA (TCEA) carries out the technical evaluation aimed at the expression of the opinion on which basis the EIA decision will be issued, after having acquired the opinion of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
The developer submits to DGEAA the application for the release of the Single Environmental Permit using the form available in the "Technical specifications and forms" section of the SEA-EIA Portal.
The following documentation, in digital format, to be attached to the application, shall be prepared according to the technical specifications named “Specifiche tecniche per la predisposizione e la trasmissione della documentazione in formato digitale per le procedure di VAS e VIA ai sensi del D.Lgs.152/2006 e s.m.i.”, available only in Italian at the section "Technical specifications and forms" of the SEA-EIA Portal:
DGEAA acquires the documentation sent by the developer and assigns the procedure to an official in charge, who performs the preliminary administrative check on the application and on the attached documentation, including the copy of the payment receipt of the fees to be paid by the developers; the official in charge also evaluates if a transboundary consultation needs to be started.
At the same time, the conformity of the documentation in digital format to the technical specifications is checked; this is a prerequisite for the publication of the documentation on SEA-EIA Portal.
The documentation is published on the SEA-EIA Portal and an official communication is sent via certified mail to all the Administrations and Bodies, competent on environmental matters, potentially involved. When submitting the application the developer has the right to indicate which documents or part of them are not to be published for industrial and/or commercial secrecy reasons, in order to guarantee confidentiality.
The DGEAA, having verified the developer’s explanations, reasonably accepts or rejects the request, weighing the interest in confidentiality with the public interest in access to information.
All the steps as described above have to be completed within 15 days from the application submission.
Within 30 days from the date of publication of the documentation on the SEA-EIA Portal, the Competent Authority and the Administrations and Bodies potentially involved verify, within their respective competences, the adequacy and completeness of the documentation submitted for issuing respectively the EIA decision and the environmental titles.
Where necessary, the above-mentioned Administrations may require additional information through the DGEAA; the developer must peremptorily submit the additional documentation within 30 days from the request.
The DGEAA publishes the public notice prepared by the developer on its own website (section “Notices to the public - EIA”). At the same time, the DGEAA communicates the public notice publication by a certified mail sent to all the Administrations and Bodies potentially involved such as Basin District Authorities, Bodies responsible for protected areas, Regions, Provinces, Metropolitan Areas, Municipalities, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism as a concerting administration.
Moreover, DGEAA sends the same communication also to the developer and to the TCEA for the start of the technical assessment.
The potentially involved municipalities, who received the certified mail by the DGEAA about the start of the technical assessment, are required to provide information on the publication of the documentation on the SEA-EIA Portal in their own online municipal notice board.
The publication date of the public notice in the SEA-EIA Portal represents the official start of the procedure as regards the starting terms of all the subsequent phases and for the final reasoned determination of the inter-departmental conference, that constitutes the Single Environmental Permit. The terms are peremptory pursuant to and for the purposes of Law 241/1990.
No later than 60 days from the publication date of the public notice, anyone interested may submit comments to the DGEAA, as specified in the SEA-EIA Portal (Procedures/Submit Comments). Comments may concern the EIA, the appropriate assessment, where necessary, and the IPPC, if requested by the developer in the application submission phase.
Within the same term, DGEAA acquires electronically the decisions of Administrations and Bodies potentially interested that received the communication about the start of the technical assessment.
Throughout the public consultation phase, the home page of the SEA-EIA Portal shows the ongoing procedures with some general information, projects location, downloadable non-technical summary and the indication of the deadline for submitting comments.
After this deadline, the administrative information, the technical documentation, the comments and opinions received, are accessible through the "Procedures" or "Research" sections of the Portal.
Following the conclusion of the public consultation, the procedure includes three phases that may take place; all these phases are possible with respect to the ordinary procedure:
Within 10 days of the public consultation deadline or of receiving the additions, DGEAA calls the inter-departmental conference whose participants are the developer, all the competent Administrations or Bodies still potentially interested in issuing the EIA decision and the environmental titles.
Parallel to the inter-departmental conference, the TCEA carries out the technical assessment to assess if the project has potential significant environmental impacts based on the documentation submitted by the developer throughout the procedure, including any additions provided by the developer and taking into account the comments and opinions received in the public consultation phase.
Within 60 days of the public consultation deadline, TCEA opinion has to be approved in Plenary session and forwarded to the DGEEA that ensures the preparation of the EIA decision scheme to be signed by the Minister of Ecological Transition for subsequent adoption.
Within 30 days from the acquisition of the EIA decision scheme, the Minister of Ecological Transition adopts the EIA decision, taking into consideration the opinion expressed by Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
After this deadline, at the request of the developer or of the interested Ministers, the EIA decision adoption is left to the resolution of the Council of Ministers that expresses itself within the next 30 days. During this phase, the inter-departmental conference timeline is suspended.
Within 210 days from the first convocation, the inter-departmental conference ends and the Competent Authority releases the final reasoned determination, which constitutes the Single Environmental Permit, comprising the EIA decision and the list of all the environmental titles required by the developer.