Inclusion of Social Elements in Impact Assessment

Studju 16-01-2006

The study reviewed if and how social elements are taken into account in Impact Assessments (IA) carried out by the European Commission before adopting legal acts and important communications to consider the effects of policy proposal in the economic, social and environmental dimensions. Quite a few Impact Assessments did not or only marginally consider social elements. Many IA cases are based on general statements and shared assumptions concerning the relations between a set of social and economic elements, without any identification of possible social indicators able to describe the impacts expected. The impacts described in the IA rarely appear “specific, measurable, accepted, realistic and time-dependent”; statistical data, evaluation reports from previous or similar programmes are not systematically used by the IA.