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The paper analyses the permit process for Swedish wind power development in terms of two paradigms of spatial planning and environmental management, and makes a comparison with the Swedish 3G mobile phone infrastructure development. Swedish Parliament has set a goal of 10 TWh annually wind electricity for 2015, and the Swedish Energy Agency has proposed 30 TWh from wind power by 2020. The present 900 windmills would have to increase to between 3000 and 6000. A government commission has examined the possibilities of making the permit processes more efficient to allow for rapid development. A proposal has recently been published. It has been criticised for letting environmental permit procedures replace local planning as the instrument of spatial planning of development. So, on one hand there is a national drive to increase the speed of wind power development, where legal changes is one measure taken, and on the other there is a strong tradition of local dominance in the spatial planning system. Swedish wind power deployment – like the 3G infrastructure – is mainly governed by two sets of legislations with different histories and partly different purposes, the Planning and Building Act (PBA), and the Environmental Code. At present windmills require a building permit and in the case of a wind farm a municipal detailed development plan in accordance with the PBA. Under the Environmental Code larger generators require a permit and smaller ones need to be registered. The PBA processes are municipal whereas the environmental come under the County Administration or the Environmental Court. These two sets of legislation can be seen as expressions of two competing paradigms of environmental governance, the planning paradigm and the environmentalist paradigm for short. They are theoretical constructions based in an analysis of professional cultures of planning and environmental management. They were used also in the analysis of the Swedish 3G development. 3G was developed between 2000 and 2007, with four licence winning operators supposed to build competing systems each covering more than 99,98 percent of the population by 2003. The coverage at that time was substantially lower and the municipal permit handling was blamed and it was considered that this "could not have been foreseen", helping operators avoid sanctions for breach of licensing conditions. It has been shown that a slow municipal permit process can not explain the lack of coverage. Development of wind power as well as of the 3G infrastructure in Sweden are interesting fields of conflict between national goals for technological development and local spatial planning and governance of land use. They are also instances of the legislative and paradigmatic struggle of the PBA and the Environmental Code. We examine the implications of the attempts to simplify permit processes as an element in this struggle. The paper is based on a study which includes the legal design as well as interviews with key figures in the Swedish wind power development and a study of the 3G development within the research programme "Tools for environmental assessment, MiSt".

The infrastructure for the third generation of mobile telephony, UMTS, is under construction in Sweden. Within three years four operators were to build competing systems to cover 99,98 % of the population. The case of the 3G infrastructure illustrates how the sustainability issues are handled in planning and environmental management, with conflicting goals between institutional levels and competing legislation. At the national level economic and technological optimism and regional policy is in conflict with environmental and sustainability goals. No SEA was made of the entire system. The infrastructure is assessed through one permit for each mast, at the local level, giving the administrative system an extreme challenge. There are unexpected environmental and social impacts as a result from the lack of comprehensive assessment. Based on surveys of all local planning authorities, a regional sample of permit processes and examination of legal cases the paper examines the outcomes of the fragmented assessment of the local permit process level, from a sustainability perspective, what are emerging effects and conflicts? An analysis of the potential of a comprehensive national SEA of the system to uncover unsustainabilities will be made.

At national policy level in Sweden, the importance of development of wind power is emphasized. However, the actual implementation is highly dependent on local permit giving for windmills. The legislation governing the permit giving has been revised in an attempt to make the local processes faster and to shift the permit process towards a more regional environmental process as opposed to a more plan-based municipal process. By tradition in Sweden, the local, municipal level has had a strong mandate in land use planning which is often referred to as the "the municipal planning monopoly", which means that there is a tension whenever a legal proposal seeks to diminish this "plan monopoly". The legal investigation suggesting changes in the law on permit-giving stressed the need for strengthening the regional assessment, which led to a compromise called the "municipal veto-right", where the regional environmental permit needs a formal approval from the municipality for the permit process to continue. This study investigates both the legal development of the so-called veto-right as well as what it empirically has led to, and how it is perceived by the industry as well as concerned parties. For this reason, a sample of 30 regional permit cases has been collected, and a limited number of interviews have been conducted with judges in appeal courts and regional handling officers assessing turbine applications. The results indicate that the industry sees the "veto" as leading to problematic uncertainty in the process at regional level and, therefore, prefer to keep the applications at a level that entitles them to use the municipal permit system which is determined by height and number of turbines. This is a consequence directly opposite to what the legal commission aimed for when revising the legal system. ; Švedijoje vėjo energetikos vystymas nacionalinėje politikoje yra ypač akcentuojamas, tačiau leidimų statyti vėjo jėgaines išdavimas labiau priklauso nuo vietinės valdžios. Teisės aktai įpareigoja greičiau išduoti leidimus pirmiausia atsižvelgiant į regioninius aplinkosaugos procesus ir tik tada į vietinių savivaldybių planavimo dokumentus. Tradiciškai Švedijoje savivaldybės turi daugiau galių žemės planavimo procesuose ir dėl to dažnai tai apibūdinama kaip "savivaldybių planavimo monopolis". Dabar yra numatyti teisės aktai, kuriais remiantis šį monopolį bus galima išskaidyti. Šiame darbe tiriama savivaldybių veto teisė, kompromisai tarp savivaldos ir poreikio vystyti vėjo energetiką. Darbe išanalizuota 30 regioninių leidimų, taip pat atliktos ribotos teisėjų ir regionų pareigūnų, atsakingų už vėjo jėgaines, apklausos. Rezultatai parodė, kad vėjo jėgainių pramonės atstovai veto teisę laiko pagrindine problema šiame procese regioniniu mastu. Taip pat turi būti funkcijų pasidalijimas tarp regiono ir vietos savivaldos.

At national policy level in Sweden, the importance of development of wind power is emphasized. However, the actual implementation is highly dependent on local permit giving for windmills. The legislation governing the permit giving has been revised in an attempt to make the local processes faster and to shift the permit process towards a more regional environmental process as opposed to a more plan-based municipal process. By tradition in Sweden, the local, municipal level has had a strong mandate in land use planning which is often referred to as the "the municipal planning monopoly", which means that there is a tension whenever a legal proposal seeks to diminish this "plan monopoly". The legal investigation suggesting changes in the law on permit-giving stressed the need for strengthening the regional assessment, which led to a compromise called the "municipal veto-right", where the regional environmental permit needs a formal approval from the municipality for the permit process to continue. This study investigates both the legal development of the so-called veto-right as well as what it empirically has led to, and how it is perceived by the industry as well as concerned parties. For this reason, a sample of 30 regional permit cases has been collected, and a limited number of interviews have been conducted with judges in appeal courts and regional handling officers assessing turbine applications. The results indicate that the industry sees the "veto" as leading to problematic uncertainty in the process at regional level and, therefore, prefer to keep the applications at a level that entitles them to use the municipal permit system which is determined by height and number of turbines. This is a consequence directly opposite to what the legal commission aimed for when revising the legal system.

At national policy level in Sweden, the importance of development of wind power is emphasized. However, the actual implementation is highly dependent on local permit giving for windmills. The legislation governing the permit giving has been revised in an attempt to make the local processes faster and to shift the permit process towards a more regional environmental process as opposed to a more plan-based municipal process. By tradition in Sweden, the local, municipal level has had a strong mandate in land use planning which is often referred to as the "the municipal planning monopoly", which means that there is a tension whenever a legal proposal seeks to diminish this "plan monopoly". The legal investigation suggesting changes in the law on permit-giving stressed the need for strengthening the regional assessment, which led to a compromise called the "municipal veto-right", where the regional environmental permit needs a formal approval from the municipality for the permit process to continue. This study investigates both the legal development of the so-called veto-right as well as what it empirically has led to, and how it is perceived by the industry as well as concerned parties. For this reason, a sample of 30 regional permit cases has been collected, and a limited number of interviews have been conducted with judges in appeal courts and regional handling officers assessing turbine applications. The results indicate that the industry sees the "veto" as leading to problematic uncertainty in the process at regional level and, therefore, prefer to keep the applications at a level that entitles them to use the municipal permit system which is determined by height and number of turbines. This is a consequence directly opposite to what the legal commission aimed for when revising the legal system. ; Open Access Journal

Standards and Thresholds play an important role in many stages of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. They can be legally binding or guidance values and are linked to environmental data. This book provides a comprehensive collection of standards and thresholds, with their derivation and application in case studies of EIA projects. The text introduces key drivers of standards, their effect on environment and health, emerging issues and more.

The central role of impact assessment instruments globally in policy integration initiatives has been cemented in recent years. Associated with this trend, but also reflecting political emphasis on greater accountability in certain policy sectors and a renewed focus on economic competitiveness in Western countries, demand has increased for evidence that these instruments are effective (however defined). Resurgent interest in evaluation has not, however, been accompanied by the conceptual developments required to redress longstanding theoretical problems associated with such activities. In order to sharpen effectiveness evaluation theory for impact assessment instruments this article critically examines the neglected issue of their political constitution. Analytical examples are used to concretely explore the nature and significance of the politicisation of impact assessment. It is argued that raising awareness about the political character of impact assessment instruments, in itself, is a vital step in advancing effectiveness evaluation theory. Broader theoretical lessons on the framing of evaluation research are also drawn from the political analysis. We conclude that, at least within the contemporary research context, learning derived from analysing the meaning and implications of plural interpretations of effectiveness represents the most constructive strategy for advancing impact assessment and policy integration theory.