Act relative to procedures of environmental impact assessment of public plans and programmes (No. 200 of 2005).

This Act provides rules for environmental impact assessment of public plans, projects and programmes. It concerns the decision-making process and promotes public participation such decision-making for sustainable development and access of the public to environment information. The Act, among other things, implements in Finland Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment. As a general rule, the authority responsible for a plan or program shall ensure that the environmental impact of the plan or program is investigated and assessed to a sufficient extent during the preparation, if the implementation of the plan or program may have a significant environmental impact. An authority's plan or program shall be subject to an environmental assessment, if 1) it is developed for agriculture, forestry, fishing, energy supply, industry, transport, waste management, water conservation, telecommunications, tourism, regional development, area use, environmental protection or nature conservation, and the assessment shall be a condition for authorization (to be decided by Decree), or 2) the plan or program is subject to the obligation to make an assessment referred to in section 65 of the Nature Conservation Act (1096/1996). The Act also concerns assessment of transboundary effects in case of international projects.