Coordinated audit on the enforcement of the European Waste Shipment Regulation

Joint report based on eight national audits

The supreme audit institutions of Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands audited the Regulation's enforcement in their home countries between 2011 and 2013. The aim of this coordinated audit was to increase insight into the practice in Europe. The audit resulted in a joint report, in English, and in eight national reports.The Court of Audit's report on the situation in the Netherlands was published on 4 October 2012 under the title Enforcement of the European Waste Shipment Regulation.

Conclusion

EU Regulation has been implemented in all eight countries but there are considerable differences in its enforcement from one country to another. Differences can be seen in the enforcement strategies applied by the supervisory authorities (six of the eight countries do not use risk analysis) and the number of inspectors involved and the number of inspections carried out of international waste shipments (between ten and a thousand a year). The response to infringements of European rules also differs (sanctions vary from one country to another). The eight audits found that the authorities had only a limited insight into the effects of their inspections and had little if any insight into the reliability of the information they received on waste processing abroad.

The differences in compliance with the rules among the EU member states and Norway are inconsistent with the basic principle of creating a level playing field for waste export enforcement in the EU.

The cooperating audit institutions make a number of recommendations in the joint report to improve enforcement.