Speeding-up environmental assessments (Omnibus VIII on environmental legislation)

This procedure is an ordinary-legislation regulation on speeding-up environmental assessments, part of an omnibus on environmental legislation. The amendments establish an environmental single point of contact, set screening deadlines and treat data obtained within seven years as sufficiently current, and clarify screening under Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC, including a presumption for nitrogen deposition below 1% of the critical load. They preserve protection under the Birds Directive 2009/147/EC and the Habitats Directive, invoke the Aarhus Convention and CJEU case-law, address data centres, supercomputers and AI infrastructure, delete Article 18(3) of the Chips Act Regulation 2023/1781, and cover outermost regions and administrative capacity.