European Environment Agency

Description

The European Environment Agency, EEA, is an agency of the European Union that provides independent information on the environment.

Together with its Eionet network, it supplies the knowledge and data needed to help develop, implement and evaluate environmental policy, and to inform the public. It was established by an EEC regulation and became operational in 1994. Its assessments cover issues such as biodiversity, air quality, transport and climate change, closely linked to EU environmental policy and legislation.

The agency publishes the flagship State and Outlook of Europe’s environment report and shares data through platforms such as the Biodiversity Information System for Europe, the Water Information System for Europe and Climate-ADAPT. It maintains the European Nature Information System, a database on species, habitats and protected sites. Eionet, its collaboration network, links national environmental agencies across member and cooperating countries and includes several European Topic Centres.

The EEA has 32 member countries, made up of the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey, along with cooperating candidate countries in the Balkans. It also cooperates internationally with neighbouring regions and other countries’ environmental agencies. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is governed by a management board of member state representatives.