According to the bill, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure will be made faster, more efficient and less bureaucratic. The purpose of the changes is to reduce the administrative burden on developers, licensees and institutions participating in the procedure, without compromising on environmental protection.
The draft will eliminate duplicative and procedural steps with little added value and simplify the environmental impact assessment process. For example, the EIA program can be canceled in certain cases preparation of the baseline, if the extent and nature of the impact is already known based on previous similar assessments. This can shorten the procedure by up to five months.
The mandatory rules for environmental impact assessment will also be changed. In the case of several activities, the automatic EIA obligation is replaced by the obligation to provide a preliminary assessment, so that a thorough environmental impact assessment is carried out only when the risk of a significant impact actually requires it. The preliminary assessment will also be harmonised preparation procedure, which helps to decide more quickly whether an environmental impact assessment is necessary.
In addition, public involvement will be improved by introducing a public discussion of the EIA report into the public display period. The purpose of the changes is to speed up the implementation of developments and make the procedures clearer.
The law is amended to give the Environmental Board the right to use, in addition to physical force, gas weapons, cold weapons and handcuffs during state supervision in special situations. In connection with the extension of powers, additional training is provided for environmental inspectors, which consists of both basic and continuing training.
Currently, the Environmental Board has the right to use firearms in emergency situations in the supervision of poaching and fishing. The bill does not expand the use of firearms right, it will continue to remain only with state supervision based on the Act on Hunting, Forestry, Fishing and Aviation. The bill solves the problem where the inspector does not have aids in his daily work. By undergoing special training, they will be entitled to use both gas and cold weapons.
132 environmental inspectors work in the Environmental Board. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure their safety and to give them adequate resources for those who cause serious damage to the environment to respond to violations. For example, in situations where it is necessary to stop the burning of hazardous waste, the discharge of sewage into water or the release of hazardous substances into the soil. Inspectors must be able to react immediately, stop the violation and arrest the violator. A gas or cold weapon can be used as a last resort if other measures fail.
The draft also provides for establishing the obligation to apply for and hold an environmental complex permit for developers and operators of renewable energy production capacities (for example, wind farms).
The explanatory letter states that in recent years, a lot of plans for the development of renewable energy capacities (especially wind farms) have been initiated in Estonia, so their impact on local residents and the wider environment should be better assessed than before. Many planned the effects of wind farms on people and the environment can be greater than on several facilities that already require a comprehensive environmental permit, such as animal barns.
According to the draft, the Environmental Board will henceforth coordinate only the projects of those boreholes and boreholes, the construction, reconstruction and demolition of which involve greater risks to groundwater. With this change, the workload of the Environmental Board will decrease and the time for applying for a construction permit for some wells will be shortened. As another change, the right to approve wastewater collection areas is transferred from the minister to the Director General of the Environmental Board. As a third change, water samplers are provided the right to organize attestation from the Ministry of Climate to a competent private legal entity with an administrative contract. The Ministry of Climate does not have to issue the attestation certificates of water samplers itself, and therefore the Ministry's workload is somewhat reduced. Also, the establishment of plans related to the implementation of the water management plan will be moved from the ministry to the level of the Environmental Board. In addition, the water permit requirement for groundwater diversion is specified in such a way that a specific threshold is added when a water permit is required for groundwater diversion.
According to the amendments to the Competition Act that entered into force on January 1, 2022, companies operating in markets regulated by special laws must pay a supervisory fee to the Competition Authority. The supervision fee is a targeted fee and its purpose is not additional taxation. Companies whose service prices and fees are coordinated by the Competition Authority pay the supervision fee according to each network or operating area or on electricity production to the sales revenue stated in the administrative act at a rate that is 0.2 percent of the sales revenue stated in the administrative act given to the company. The basis for calculating the supervision fee is the administrative act issued as of July 15 of each calendar year according to the applicable law.
With the change, instead of the current year, the status of July 15 of the previous year is taken into account, which makes the amount of the supervision fee more predictable for companies. The correction affects the adjustable sector infrastructure companies, which are nearly 200.
The law is scheduled to enter into force on January 1, 2024. It is not practical for the Act to come into force within a calendar year, as the fees are calculated for each calendar year.
According to the current law, qualified trust service providers can offer e-identification and trust services necessary for e-transactions, such as signing with an ID card, Smart-ID and mobile ID, or personal identification if a liability insurance contract has been concluded with the insurance provider. Since the Estonian market is small and it is expensive for local service providers to develop a niche service, professional liability insurance is not offered to the Estonian market in the desired volume. In order for the provision of the service not to be interrupted due to the lack of insurance, it is necessary to provide an alternative. In accordance with the EU regulation, the draft allows to ensure compensation for damages with a guarantee equivalent to liability insurance or by proving the existence of sufficient financial resources.
The change affects qualified trust service providers. There are currently two of them in Estonia: Guardtime OÜ and SK ID Solutions AS.
The bill amends the provision of the law, which gives the owner, whose real estate is to be transferred in the public interest, the opportunity to receive compensation within the limits prescribed by law, in addition to the administration costs related to the transfer, also for the preparation of a comparative evaluation report ordered by him.
By next year, the rate of waterway charges specified in the Maritime Safety Act will be reduced by 25 percent to support the international transport of goods and passengers by sea. The reduction of the water charge applies to all ships, regardless of the type of ship and the flag under which the ship sails.
The purpose of the changes is to continue supporting international sea transport through Estonian ports and, if possible, to motivate shippers to direct their cargo flows through Estonia ports.
Estimated collection of waterway fees with a 25% reduced rate by 2023 is approx. 10 million euros, by the end of 2022 with a 50% rate, it is estimated to be 8.1 million euros.
The bill clarifies issues of the right of representation in the Patent Office and the Industrial Property Appeals Committee and simplifies the proof of the patent attorney's right of representation.
According to the draft, in the field of inventions, the patent commissioner will no longer be required to submit a power of attorney when communicating with the Patent Office.
The draft specifies the scope of the right of representation of the joint representative appointed from among the patent applicants or the right holders themselves.
In connection with changes in representation and with the transition to electronic administration, the procedure for the transmission of notices from the Patent Office is also specified. The procedure for paying the state fee will also change.
The bill makes changes to the Public Procurement Act, which enable the implementation of sanctions imposed by the EU. According to the EU sanction, it is forbidden to conclude a procurement contract or to continue the execution of a procurement contract with a person who is a citizen, resident or company established there of the Russian Federation. The draft stipulates that the procurer has the right to demand confirmations, data and evidence from the companies participating in the public procurement in order to verify the absence of international sanctions. Second, the grounds for exclusion and bid rejection are changed to include potential sanctions. Thirdly, it is possible to prematurely terminate already concluded procurement contracts, which are parties to international sanctions. The law is scheduled to enter into force on June 1, 2022.
With the bill, the corresponding EU directive on accessibility requirements for products and services will be transposed into domestic law.
The draft is intended to ensure that every person with special needs does not get into trouble when using products and services, but that he finds an alternative format for using the product and consuming the service. Thereby, the goal is to shape a more inclusive society in order to make it easier for people with limited functional abilities to live independently coping.
The draft stipulates the accessibility requirements for products and services within the scope of the Accessibility Directive, the obligations of the company to ensure accessibility, the assessment of compliance with accessibility requirements and the assumption of compliance, as well as state supervision and responsibility. It also introduces terms that have not been legally defined until now and the need to define them arises from those used in the transposition of the directive of concepts.
According to the bill, for example, a self-service terminal must be made accessible in such a way that the cash machine can be comfortably used by a person with reduced mobility in a wheelchair, as well as a child, a short adult and the elderly.
The changes in the bill concern the entrepreneur who will be obliged to fulfill the proposed requirements. The requirements do not apply to a micro-entrepreneur service provider, i.e. a company with less than 10 employees, whose annual turnover does not exceed 2 million euros.
The draft solves the practical problems that arose during the implementation of the law and brings the law into line with the public procurement directives of the European Union. It is mainly about various technical changes to improve legal clarity and make procurement arrangements more flexible.
The changes concerning the evaluation criteria, the treatment of unreasonably low cost tenders and the violation of procurement contracts will change the public procurement procedure and also more flexible for the procurer in the execution of procurement contracts and enable the procurer to better take into account the specificities of a specific public procurement and the corresponding market situation when setting the conditions of public procurement. The changes concerning remediation and the procurement passport will reduce both the work load of procurers and the administrative burden of entrepreneurs.
Two of the changes made on the basis of the complaints of the European Commission are of a technical nature and concern one of the prerequisites for cooperation between suppliers, i.e. the calculation of the percentage of activity taking place on the open market and, in the case of innovation partnerships, the accuracy of the description contained in the basic documents of public procurement.
Two changes concern the authorization of negotiations with the successful tenderer in case of a competitive dialogue to refine the offer, which, considering the nature of this procedure, can be very important for the final establishment of the terms of the procurement contract. In the course of negotiations and specification of the offer, you must not to change the tender or the basic documents of the public procurement, and it must be ensured that the tenderer is not placed in a more favorable position compared to other tenderers. The change allows for flexibility, which is critical to achieving a high-quality outcome when using adversarial dialogue.
The other two changes deal with the determination of these shares either as a relevant range or, if this is not possible for objective reasons, the importance of in order. Although procurers are used to assigning specific weightings to the evaluation criteria, which is also the most transparent and controllable way and best ensures equal treatment of companies in the evaluation of tenders, the added flexibility can help in certain cases to find the most economically advantageous tender.
The bill stipulates that in order to alleviate the rise in electricity prices, the renewable energy fee for electricity consumers must be canceled and the renewable energy fees for producers must be covered as a state budget allocation from the income from CO2 emission quotas. Therefore, the government is proposed to initiate a corresponding bill. In addition, the Government is proposed to initiate the State Budget Bill 2022 in such a way that its revenues do not provide for the current rates of fuel and electricity excise lifting.
The bill takes over the corresponding directive of the European Parliament and the Council, which deals with the changes made to the common rules of the internal electricity market.
The change increases the possibilities of distributed generation through the regulation of active network service users. This gives consumers the opportunity to participate more actively in the electricity market and benefit primarily from changing their consumption habits. Creation, development and management of energy communities are also foreseen related regulation, as well as regulation of aggregation and consumption echo, to increase the flexibility of networks and the energy efficiency of consumers.
Network operators are required to purchase flexibility mechanisms from the market through a bidding process. The bill also sets the conditions for the network operator to develop market-based charging networks for electric vehicles.
The bill establishes a clear division of competence and responsibility between eID authorities in the e-Identification and e-Transactions Trust Services Act (EUTS) and the Identity Documents Act (ITDS).
The draft modernizes the regulation regarding the assessment of the level of reliability of private e-identification systems.
In parallel, the Law on State Fees is supplemented by adding the level of reliability of the e-identification system to the RIA operations applicable state fee for reviewing the assessment request.
During the resolution of the security weakness of the ID card that appeared in the fall of 2017, the need to organize the legal space concerning identity documents, e-identification and trust services, as well as the division of work and responsibilities between the state institutions responsible for these areas, emerged.
Eelnõu algatamise tingis Euroopa Komisjoni hinnang, et Eesti ei ole Euroopa Parlamendi ja nõukogu vastava direktiivi teatavat liiki ettevõtjate aruandeaasta finantsaruannete, konsolideeritud finantsaruannete ja nendega seotud aruannete kohta käivaid sätteid nõuetekohaselt üle võtnud.
The bill specifies the duties of the auditor when auditing a medium-sized enterprise, a large enterprise and a public interest entity. The auditor is obliged from now on confirm in the audit report whether the activity report complies with the financial report and the applicable requirements of the law. The purpose of the change is to strengthen the confidence of investors and other interested parties in the information published in the company's activity report. In addition, the requirements regarding the information that a large enterprise of a public interest entity with more than 500 employees must reflect in its activity report are specified. Similar changes are also made to the consolidated reports in terms of The aim of the changes is to better identify sustainability risks and increase investor and consumer confidence. As a result of the bill, the audit fee for medium and large enterprises will become slightly more expensive, and the amount of reporting obligations of some large enterprises will increase to a small extent.
The bill provides for joining the Meter Convention to become a full member of the organization's units with access to a number of services, such as the calibration of national standards.
When Estonia joins the meter convention, compared to the previous associated membership, significantly wider opportunities and rights will open up. As a participating country, in addition to participation, we can also vote at the meetings of the General Conference and nominate candidates for Committee positions we are able to influence the development of metrology at the most general international level. Participation in the work of the committee gives the state party the opportunity to direct the focus of metrology development and the nature of research and development projects. Through Estonia's participation, we can guide the digitalization of metrology in a way that suits us and influence other countries in the field of metrology to adopt e-government solutions created and functioning in Estonia. By joining the metric convention, we can free access to the Bureau's services, i.e. free access to reference measurements and calibration services of state standards is guaranteed with the contribution of the participating state.
The Metric Convention deals with issues of metrology, or the science of measurement, worldwide. The main task is the development and creation of more and more accurate, comprehensive and measuring standards covering various fields of measurement and raising the equivalence of the standards of different countries.
Eelnõu korrastab kehtivat raudteeseadust. Lisaks kehtiva seaduse teksti ja struktuuri muutmisele täiendatakse raudteeseadust direktiividest tulenevate sätete ja vähesel määral siseriiklike nõuete täpsustamisega.
Alates 2003. aastast kehtivat raudteeseadust on selle vastuvõtmisest enam kui 30 korda muudetud, mis on teinud seaduse teksti raskesti loetavaks, seetõttu on mõistlik välja anda uus seaduse terviktekst.
Eelnõu näeb ette vähendada riigilõivumäära, kui raudteeliiklusregistri toiminguteks esitatakse taotlus TTJA e-teenuse infosüsteemi kaudu. Samas lisatakse seadusesse ka täiendavaid lõivusid näiteks raudteeveeremi tehnohoolde ja remondi ning raudteeveeremi ehituse tegevusloa muutmise taotluste läbivaatamise eest.
Eelnõuga ülevõetavate ELi direktiivide puhul on tegemist neljanda raudteepaketi tehnilise samba õigusaktidega, mille eesmärk on viia lõpule Euroopa ühtse raudteeturu loomine.
Nimetatud paketi eesmärk on elavdada raudteesektorit ja teha see konkurentsivõimelisemaks võrreldes teiste transpordisektoritega. Tehnilise samba rakendamisega loodetakse suurendada konkurentsi raudteesektoris vähendades kulusid ja halduskoormust ettevõtetele, kes soovivad tegutseda mitmes Euroopa Liidu riigis. Selleks saab edaspidi taotleda lubasid ELi Raudteeameti kaudu.