IRI stands for IMPEL Review Initiative and is a voluntary peer review scheme where environmental authorities of IMPEL member countries help each other to improve the implementation of EU environmental law. By having an IRI, the host gets free advice for further improvement of their work and best practices are exchanged around the European community.
It was set up to implement the European Parliament and Council Recommendation (2001/331/EC) providing for minimum criteria for environmental inspections (RMCEI), where it states:
“Member States should assist each other administratively in operating this Recommendation. The establishment by Member States in cooperation with IMPEL of reporting and advice schemes relating to inspectorates and inspection procedures would help to promote best practice across the Community.”
The potential benefits of the IRI include:
- providing advice to environmental authorities seeking an external review of their structure, operation or performance by experts from other IMPEL member countries;
- encouraging capacity building in environmental authorities in IMPEL member countries;
- encouraging the exchange of experience and collaboration between these authorities on common issues and problems;
- spreading good practice leading to improved quality of the work of inspectors and other officials working within environment authorities and contributing to continuous improvement of quality and consistency of application of environmental law across the EU (“the level playing-field”).
Member states that host an IRI will benefit from an expert review of its systems and procedures with particular focus on conformity with the RMCEI. The participants in the review team will broaden and deepen their knowledge and understanding of environmental inspection procedures. Other Member States will benefit through the dissemination of the findings of the review through the IMPEL network.
If you are interested in hosting an IRI, IRI information package will provide you with some key information.
You can find the reports of the previous IRI studies at the left side of the page.