The Ministry of the Environment and Gender Equality's management of particularly polluting companies has been sharply criticized by the State Auditors. This is announced by the State Auditors in a report that was discussed on Monday.
The criticism is directed at the administration of rules for environmental approvals and statutory inspections of the so-called particularly polluting companies, as well as the waiting time for the issuance of new permits.
The consequence is that the agency has allowed companies to pollute according to outdated requirements for years, and that discharges of environmentally hazardous substances risk going unnoticed.
The criticism of the administration is at the second harshest level on the scale that the State Auditors work with.
According to a report from the National Audit Office, on the basis of which the State Auditors make their decision, the Environmental Protection Agency has ensured that approximately 96 percent of the particularly polluting companies have an environmental approval.
The minister has a plan
But according to the audit, the agency has not complied the rules that environmental approvals must be reassessed every 10 years for 76 percent of companies.
The audit also states that the agency has not complied with the rules to introduce the EU's environmental requirements within the four-year timeframe for 73 percent of companies.
Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke (S) takes the criticism "very" seriously, and states in a written response that he is "ready with a plan" for restoring the Environmental Protection Agency's management of the business sector.
- Supervision of companies is one of the Environmental Protection Agency's core tasks, and it is completely unacceptable that it is not resolved within the framework set out in the law, Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke responds in a written response.
The case pile is growing
The Rigsrevisionen also writes in their report that the case processing time for new environmental approvals increases year by year, and so does the number of unprocessed cases.
At the end of 2024, 244 cases were waiting to be processed. The audit writes that the unfinished cases have an average waiting time of 700 days, and that the oldest cases are from 2015.
The audit points out that since December 2023, the Ministry of the Environment and Gender Equality's department has been informed about the lack of timeliness of new environmental approvals, reassessments and inspections.
- In June 2024, I informed the Folketing that I was setting up a task force to catch up on some of the backlog of environmental approvals. We will expand and continue this task force from 2026, so that companies must meet the latest environmental requirements, says the Minister of the Environment.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
