No L 377/48 Official Journal of the European Communities 31.12.91 _ COUNCIL DIRECTIVE of 23 December 1991 standardizing and rationalizing reports on the implementation of certain Directives relating to the environment (91/692/EEC) THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 130s thereof, o Having regard to the proposal from the Commission (1), Having regard to the opinion of the European "Parliament (2), Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee (3), - Whereas some Community Directives relating to the environment require the Member States to establish a report on the measures taken to implement them; whereas the Commission drafts a consolidated report; whereas other Community Directives relating to the environment call for no such reports; Whereas the existing provisions on the establishment of reports stipulate different intervals between reports and set different requirements for their content; Whereas such an obligation should be introduced to enable the Member States and the Commission alike to assess the progress made in implementing these Directives throughout the Community’s territory and, at the same time, to provide the general public with a source of information on this subject; Whereas the existing provisions should therefore be harmonized to make them more consistent and more complete on a sectoral basis; Whereas the interval at which the Member States submit these reports to the Commission should be fixed at three years, with a one-year interval between sectors; whereas the reports are to be drawn up on the basis of a . questionnaire produced by the Commission with the (1) O No C 214, 29. 8. 1990, p. 6. (2) O] No C 19, 28. 1. 1991, p. 587. (3) O] No C 60, 8. 3. 1991, p. 15. assistance of a committee and sent to Member States six months before the start of the period referred to by the report; 'whereas the Commission is to publish a consolidated report on the sector concerned within nine months of Member States’ submission of their respective reports; Whereas, in particular, the report on the implementation of Council Directive 76/160/EEC of 8 December 1975 concerning the quality of bathing water (4), as last amended by the 1985 Act of Accession, should appear annually and in sufficient time to inform the public of the quality “of bathing water for the most recent period. Whereas the measures which need to be taken by Member States do not entail the adoption of legislation or regulations since the drawing-up of reports on the implementarion of Community Directives does not at present require the adoption of such provisions by Member States, HAS ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE: Article 1 The purpose of this Directive is to rationalize and improve on a sectoral basis the provisions on the transmission of information and the publication of reports concerning certain Community Directives on the protection of the environment, without prejudice to the provisions of the first indent of Article 155 of the Treaty. Article 2 1. The provisions listed in Annex I shall be replaced by the following: ‘At intervals of three years<he Member States shall send information to the Commission on the implementation of this Directive, in the form of a sectoral report which shall also cover other pertinent Community Directives. This report shall be drawn up on the basis of a questionnaire or outline drafted by the Commission in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 6 of Directive 91/692/EEC (*). The questionaire or outline (*) O No L 31, 5. 2. 1976, p. 1.