Response to call for evidence on the "Do Not Significant Harm" principle in the next long-term EU budget

ClientEarth welcomes the European Commission’s public consultation on the technical guidance on applying the "do no significant harm" principle (DNSH) in the next EU long-term budget for 2028-2034 (Multiannual Financial Framework, or MFF). The DNSH principle is proposed as a binding overarching condition for all spending programmes within the EU. This means that activities or measures that do significant harm to the environment can in principle not (there are exceptions) receive EU funding.

The shift from a programme-specific approach to a horizontally applicable DNSH principle across the entire EU budget has the potential to make the DNSH principle more effective and simpler to apply. The DNSH principle can be a cornerstone of the EU’s integrated economic and environmental policies to drive the EU’s resilience. It is not just a technical tool but potentially a transformative tool driving the EU’s repeated commitment to sustainability across all policy areas.

Our contribution contains substantive recommendations for an effective DNSH principle, such as:

• the operationalisation of the DNSH principle must go beyond mere compliance with EU environmental law;
• a DNSH assessment could consist of a two-step approach whereby activities or measures should first be checked against an exclusion list (and possibly an eligibility list), and whereby a sector-specific DNSH assessment needs to occur whenever they do not fall within the scope of such list;
• any derogations from the application of the DNSH principle shall be clearly defined, circumscribed, narrowly interpreted, with strict conditions and time-bound, to preserve the principle’s value, purpose and impact.

The effectiveness of the DNSH principle also depends on a uniform procedural approach for the assessments, as well as the quality, traceability and reviewability of the decision-making process itself. DNSH assessments should be reasoned, evidence-based, sufficiently documented, and open to scrutiny, so that compliance can be meaningfully verified by the Commission, auditors, courts and the public.