European Geologist Journal 56
Geology in legislation making: Past experience, and future opportunities in Europe
by Tamas Hamor 1*, Pavlos Tyrologou 2 and Maria Hamor-Vido 3
1 University of Pécs
2 European Federation of Geologists
3 University of Pécs
Contact: hamort4@gmail.com
Abstract
In the last century geoscientists played a limited role in shaping mainstream legislation. Their assistance was limited to drafting the technical aspects within regulations governing the extractive sector or waste disposal. Their primary responsibility was the implementation. A significant shift occurred at the turn of the century. Driven by rapid developments in the EU acquis on environment and energy, emerging political priorities, and professional associations became successful in horizon scanning and proactively proposing scientific and technical aid to EU bodies. Foresight studies now warn for potential conflicts, both physical and legal, arising from diverse sectoral legislation governing underground space and extractable geological resources. The current first-come-first-serve practice is not in compliance with the principles of good governance and prudent management of natural resources. A pragmatic solution involves the harmonised application of the Strategic Impact Assessment Directive and the transition of 2D land use planning into a 3D (4D) spatial development. This requires the guidance of national authorities by the EC to ensure good governance and a collaborative awareness-raising campaign by industry and professional associations, including EFG.
Cite as: Hamor, T., Tyrologou, P., & Hamor-Vido, M. (2023). Geology in legislation making: Past experience, and future opportunities in Europe. European Geologist, 56. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10304868
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
1. Introduction
Foresight studies on future research tasks of geologists have been published mainly in association with major milestones such as the millennium [1] or in response to rapidly emerging challenges [2]. However, significantly less attention was paid to past and future regulatory involvement of geologists. While monographic papers have explored the provisions of the European Union (EU) Community legislation (“acquis”) pertaining to mining [3], soil and subsoil [4], extractive waste management [5], unconventional hydrocarbons [6], certifying professional geologists [7] but pan-European reviews addressing relevant permitting issues and regulatory authorities fora are notably scarce [8, 9, 10].
As a validated hypothesis, the societal and economic importance of a discipline and a profession, inter alia, can be assessed by its occurrence in national and European Union legislation, as well as in precursor policy documents. The initial attempt was by Hamor [11], who traced the evolving responsibilities of the geological authority over the past 170 years in Hungary. Comparable methodologies have been deployed in works examining a half-century timespan of EU law, addressing issues on oil and gas [6], and providing a comprehensive overview on geology in a broader context [12].
Building upon the aforementioned works, this study aims to provide a conclusive historical review of the evolution of the acquis over the past half century. It focusses specifically on topics that require the involvement of geologists and competent geological authorities in the entire legislative process, in its implementation, monitoring and post-implementation aftercare. The proxy analysis highlights major political and economic milestones, as potential drivers, and also points at a possible regulatory solution that may mediate most potential conflicts in the future. It is stressed that the focus of this paper is on legislation in a strict sense and not on the voluminous policy documents. The current study and the earlier works of Hamor et al. identified approximately 200-300 relevant legal pieces, the display of which is beyond the size limits of this article.
2. Materials and methods
The EU acquis is referred to as “supranational” law. Its primary legislation includes treaties and international conventions. Treaties regulate the thematic scope of the acquis, the responsibilities of EU bodies and the legislative, executive and judicial procedures. Secondary law includes: (a) regulations, directly applicable and binding in all MS; (b) directives, binding the objectives to be achieved, while leaving national authorities at discretion; and (c) decisions, binding for those to whom they are addressed. Union competences are governed by the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. In areas outside of its exclusive competence, the Union acts only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the MS, whether at central, regional or local level. The Union intervenes when, due to the scale or effects of the proposed action, achieving these objectives at the Union level would be more effective (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) Art. 5). Under the principle of conferral, the Union acts only within the limits of the competences conferred upon it in the TFEU.
For the historical analysis of the EU legislation, the authentic EUR-LEX database (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html) served as the primary source, complemented by a review of relevant works. A quantitative trend analysis, as an independent indicator approach was introduced [11] and applied to other themes [6,12]. This method uses the advanced search functions of EUR-LEX by the all documents/legal acts, the given years, and employing the topic-specific phrases, such as “geolog”, “mineral”, “hydrocarbon”, “energy”, “renewable energy”, and “geotherm”.
3. Results
3.1. Historical review
3.1.1. The beginning (1951-1989)
The legislative history of the EU includes a prominent focus on the fossil fuels sector, dating back to the early predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community. An objective of the Rome Treaty (1951) was “to promote a policy of using natural resources rationally and avoiding their unconsidered exhaustion.” The Euratom Treaty (1957) set provisions on raw materials providing a “common supply policy on the principle of equal access”. In the 1960-70s, the geology related acquis was limited to resolutions promoting the extractive sector, directives on stocking and trading of uranium and fossil fuels, mines safety, and occupational health. The initial environmental legislation was marked by the Directive on dangerous substances in 1967 (67/548). By the mid-1970s, water policy was established, incorporating the Groundwater Directive. Notably, this directive provides an option to authorise discharges resulting from re-injection of water utilised for geothermal purposes into the same aquifer. Decision 75/51 is the first legislation in the acquis mentioning geothermal energy, and Regulation 729/79 is the first, and only monographic legislation so far, which covers the geothermal sector exclusively. In the 1980s directives on industry accident hazards and environmental impact assessment were adopted. Soil was brought under the purview of the acquis in context of sewage sludge management and plant protection. The Directive on construction affairs (89/106) established requirements for mechanical resistance and stability, paving the way for the development of EU technical standards on geotechnics and seismic design.
3.1.2. Introducing environmental legislation (1990-1999)
In this decade legislation underwent updates on technical safety and occupational health related to drilling, underground mines, and ionising radiation. Aligned with international standards, a statistical system was established for products, such as extracted minerals and semi-finished (intermediary) mineral products. A remarkable milestone occurred in 1994, the Hydrocarbons Directive (94/22), which promoted undistorted open competition in oil and gas exploration and production, also considering geological conditions. Legislation supporting water was developed for urban waste waters, nitrates, and potable water. Additionally, directives on hazardous and packaging waste were introduced. The Landfill Directive (1999/31) addressed numerous geological requirements, including the multi-barrier concept, a stipulation that geological and engineered layers must jointly prevent the migration of pollutants from landfilled waste. The Amsterdam Treaty (1997) introduced a coherent environmental policy by adopting sustainable development through the “prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources.” In addition to emission- or compartment-specific legislation, a series of “horizontal” laws were introduced, addressing aspects such as free access to information, biodiversity conservation, risk assessment methodologies, integrated pollution prevention and control, and accident hazards prevention.
3.1.3. Extension to the energy and climate sector (2000-2009)
Our century has witnessed significant changes in the acquis concerning geoscientific aspects, both in terms of new topics and the intensity of legislation making, i.e., approximately 50-60 relevant legal documents for each of the last two decades. Due to the Energy Community Treaty (2006) and the Lisbon Treaty (2008), the entire energy sector became subject to the acquis, covering taxation rules, statistics, trade, public procurement, critical infrastructures, gas market, minimum stocks of oil, and the transnational energy grid. The Treaty created an integrated market in natural gas and electricity with a stable regulatory and market framework capable of attracting investment in gas networks, power generation and cross-border transmission networks, providing relevant Parties access to a stable supply. The Renewables Directive (2001/77) set national indicative targets for renewables. Its implementing acts provided specific details on co-generation, including geothermal power plants, energy efficiency, eco-design criteria, ecolabels, and national renewable energy plans. In 2009, its amendment provided a definition for geothermal energy: “energy stored in the form of heat beneath the surface of solid earth” without any temperature limitations. The implementing legislation introduced details on geothermal power plants and heat pump requirements and a legal definition of heat pump was created: “a device or installation that extracts heat at low temperature from air, water or earth and supplies the heat to the building”. The climate dossier, as a new entrant, adopted the international protocols on EU scale. It also introduced measures regarding the geological storage of carbon dioxide, arguably making it the most geology-specific directive in force. Concurrently, in line with decarbonisation efforts, regulations were adopted for the transition of the coal industry.
The waste management law evolved rapidly through essential legislation, including the European Waste Catalogue (2000/532) and related statistics, regulations on discarded batteries, measures regarding packaging waste, classification requirements for landfills and the introduction of a new Waste Framework Directive (2008/98). This directive provided definitions for end-of-waste and by-products, along with recycling targets for construction and demolition waste, offering a potential substitute to natural aggregates. Tailings dam failures (Aznarcollar 1998, Baia Mare 2000; [3]) led to the establishment of legislation on the extractive waste stream, where obligations implicitly require the involvement of professional geologists and include geological aspects. The Water Framework Directive (2000/60) innovated a sophisticated management scheme of river basins and integrated groundwater bodies, mandating hydrogeological studies at all scales. Its subsidiary directives include provisions related to polluting substances, groundwater protection, flood risk assessment, mineral waters, and the marine environment.
The “horizontal” environmental legislation extended to an inventory of emissions (EPRTR), voluntary eco-management schemes, public participation, environmental liability, and registration of chemicals. A significant directive for geologists is the one on spatial information (INSPIRE, 2007/2) encompassing mineral and energy commodity resources and geohazards. Another relevant piece focussed on the eco-labelling of soil improvers and hard floor coverings, playing a pioneering role in introducing resource efficiency considerations and LCA thinking to the acquis. The adaptation of the Kimberley certification scheme for diamonds, and the updated regulations on the safe supply of crude oil and fissile ores were also released. The emerging terror threat led to the publication of a directive on the protection of critical infrastructures.
The Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications (2005/36) and the Regulation on the statistical classification of economic activities (1893/2006) provide a framework for the free movement and profession of geologists within the EU.
3.1.4. Diversification of regulatory fields, non-fuel raw materials as a new entrant (2010-2023)
Over the past 13 years, the acquis has seen a notable diversification of the regulated fields. There has been an ongoing effort to modernise existing regulations through amendments, a push for deregulation, and a campaign advocating for “smart regulation”. Alongside these changes, we have witnessed the emergence of new policies, some of which have not attained the same level of legislation, such as non-fuel raw materials, unconventional hydrocarbons, the hydrogen economy, circular economy and open strategic autonomy.
The new energy laws focus on infrastructure, export credits, accounting, research, state aid, concession, procurement, labelling, statistics, internal market rules, resilience, climate change mitigation, and district heating, many of which have explicit citations on geothermal energy. The most remarkable development is on heat pumps covering practically all details. The EU best environmental performance standards for the different sectors now require the consideration of geothermal energy and heat pump supply. The climate package was updated regarding emission accounting, CCS, and risk sectors, along with a decision to facilitate the closure of uncompetitive coal mines. The US shale gas boom did not generate precautionary measures among EU policy makers, despite numerous exploration projects launched in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the UK. In 2011 France instigated a ban on hydraulic fracturing. The EU Commission and the Parliament published several reports, yet the issue remained at Recommendation level in 2014, covering numerous geological aspects [13]. In addition, a dedicated BREF (Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference document) was also published.
The environmental dossier underwent amendment with inclusions related to the EIA, Seveso, the Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75) replacing IPPC, the new Action Programme, and the introduction of new ecolabel standards. The priority in water policy is on the marine environment, thus also covering the extraction of marine minerals. The waste acquis progressed with the ban on mercury, the amendment of the framework directive and landfilling rules and the directive on plastics. Detailed specifications on radioactive waste, end-of-waste, recycling, and ecotoxicity were released. A set of EC decisions were released on the implementation of the Extractive Waste Directive (2006/21).
The last decade brought about the modernisation of the raw materials sector. The OECD conflict minerals initiative was adopted by an EU regulation in 2017. The Raw Materials Initiative in 2008, serving as a potential EU answer to unilateral trade restrictions, launched a set of measures which were major drivers for our professional activities over the last 15 years. Eventually, it became an integral part of the Green Deal, the new growth strategy [14], which aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a competitive economy, achieving a state where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases and economic growth is decoupled from resource use. Geological knowledge requirements are embedded in several key pillars, including clean energy, smart mobility, climate ambition, thus fostering innovation. Raw materials are addressed under “Mobilising industry for a clean and circular economy”, signifying that 12% of the materials come from recycling. This calls for actions in resource-intensive industry sectors, waste reduction, and the establishment of a robust and integrated single market for secondary raw materials and by-products. It acknowledges that access to resources is a strategic matter of security. Ensuring a sustainable supply of raw materials, particularly critical raw materials, is necessary for clean technologies and digital, space and defence applications. Diversifying supply from both primary and secondary sources, is one of the pre-requisites for a green transition. As a result of this policy, the draft Critical Raw Materials Act was released on March 16, 2023. Among other recent measures, in response to the COVID crisis and the conflict in Ukraine, Regulation 2021/2106 on the recovery and resilience scoreboard includes several relevant indicators. Additionally, new regulations were published in 2022 on gas storage, including underground storage.
4. Discussion
4.1. Past and present trends
Figure 1. below helps the visualisation of the legal review presented in the previous chapter and highlights some of the major milestones that propelled these trends.

Figure 1: The graph illustrates the annual count of published legal and policy documents in the European Union related to environment and geology, between 1970 and 2022. The data was obtained through a text search in the EUR-LEX online database (adapted from Hámor et al. [12]).
The total number of all (legal and policy) documents increased up to 2014, coinciding with the launch of the smart regulation campaign by the Juncker Commission. The 4-6 years periodicity of negative peaks (e.g., 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009) reflect the election periods of the Commission and the Parliament. The EU enlargements (1973, 1981, 1986, 1995, 2004, 2007, 2013) have no visible effects on the legislation trend. The number of documents with words “water” + “environment” show historical correlation with the number of documents with the words “geology” + ”soil” + ”geophys” + ”mineral” since the 1990s, the latter having ca. 5-6 times less, 400-700 as compared to 2000-3000 for the previous.
The number of legal documents containing the words “geology” + ”soil” + ”geophys” + ”mineral” in the mid-1970s is nearly equal to all documents containing these words, including those with “water” + “environment”. However, their trends begin to diverge in the 1980s. Over the last half-century the number of legal documents with topics explicitly or implicitly relevant to geology has been increasing relative to the overall publication activity of the Community. The legal texts with “geology” + “soil” + ”geophys” + ”mineral” display a curve which peaks in the mid-1970s, with a negative shift in the mid-1990s, and sustained growth since then. On average, over the past half-century, geoscience related documents, broadly speaking, represent about 10 % of the EU’s legal documents. Alongside the drivers of policy and legislation illustrated in Figure. 1, it is noteworthy that representative pan-European professional organisations such as EFG, EGS, Euromines, IMA, Eurocoal were established at the turn of the century, engaging in successful lobbying activities.
4.2. Proactive proposal for future the legal framework of underground resources
Legislation is commonly a response to social and economic tensions, which can be chronic or acute in nature. The European Parliament, in conjunction with the Council and the Commission, issues annual or biannual legislative priorities aligned with mid-term strategies spanning 4-5 years, such as the Green Deal. These pressures often result from various sources, such as the Court of Justice rulings (e.g., in case of extractive waste), significant public and political turbulence (e.g., hydraulic fracturing, climate change), or international obligations (Kyoto Protocol, responses to the COVID pandemic, or conflict situations). It is relatively less common for scientific research to directly induce new legislation by highlighting existing gaps or contradictions in the law and introducing novel concepts for the legal and regulatory framework.
According to Hámorné et al. [15], the management of underground resources poses challenges due to the emergence of permitting and utilisation conflicts within the underground domain, involving competing resources, such as minerals, geofluids and underground space. These conflicts arise for several reasons. The ownership of these resources is often diverse, being held privately or by the state, and at times ownership can be unclear, such as in the case of determining ownership of multi-level garages. In some instances, ownership is simply not defined by law, for example host rocks or formations accommodating different facilities and activities. The permitting principle is often based on a “first-come-first-serve” rule, which does not align with the principles of good governance. Moreover, permitting responsibilities are often shared among numerous authorities, some of which lack the required professional competence and knowledge base. The knowledge base itself is often segmented, being managed by different stakeholders like geological surveys, mining inspectorates, utility companies and land use planning-and engineering firms, etc… The economic interests of the state, the regions, the municipality, the investor, and the landowner can differ a lot, leading to long lasting legal disputes. This chaotic situation and the targeted sustainability call for a more systematic assessment toolkit which can promote more harmonised decision making and permitting framework.
The EU legislation has historically faced limitations in this respect. Previously, Member States were opposed to introduce common rules on land use planning, soil and subsoil issues, and on mineral exploration and extraction. Member States historically opposed such rules, viewing them as encroachments on their national sovereignty over governance of their assets. However, this changed a lot in 2023 when the Commission had proposed to draft regulations for both soil and critical minerals. In 2021, Hámorné et al. [15] outlined a set of measures that may pave the way for the sustainable management of underground resources, which includes (a) the establishment and upgrade of a national 3D knowledge base, preferably managed by geological surveys and accessible to the public as environmental information; (b) develop a robust methodology to perform a comparative criticality assessment on the competing resources (Fig. 2); (c) apply the Strategic Impact Assessment Directive in a systematic way, prior to final decision making with regard to these resources; and (d) enforce the transition of conventional land use planning into a 3D (4D) spatial development. Given the possibilities presented by the new bills, concerned EU level professional associations, like EFG may consider lobbying efforts to strengthen the role of these professions. This could involve advocating for references in the legal texts that mandate the involvement of chartered geologists in relevant activities, such as signing exploration reports or conducting local underground resources inventories. Needless to say, it is essential that EU level actions must be mirrored by and integrated with measures at the national, regional, and local levels
A few EU Member States already opted for this method. In The Netherlands the new Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) of 2021 combines and simplifies regulations for spatial projects. Dozens of environmental legislations and hundreds of regulations for land use, infrastructure, nature conservation and water were integrated. Citizens and companies can apply for a digital permit at a ‘one-stop-shop’, whereafter the municipality or province issues the resolution. In Germany, BGR has several projects on the 3D modelling of underground space use and UBA introduced the concept of “potential utilisation zone” as a possible instrument for subsurface spatial planning [16]. In Hungary, the National Science Fund is sponsoring a pilot project led by University of Pécs. This initiative aims to further elaborate into criticality assessment, establish a regional 3D database and outline the requirements for the amending national legislation.
5. Conclusions
Geological themes and resulting duties of geologists are incorporated into several sectoral laws of the European Union. Initially, provisions related to the fossil fuels extractive sector were embedded in the treaties of the European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom. At the end of the twentieth century, environment, water, and waste management was introduced to the Community laws addressing geological aspects. Tailing dam failures occurring at the turn of the century changed this era, the extractive sector became subject to environmental directives. Over the two previous decades, the new energy policy, decarbonisation, the Raw Materials Initiative and the circular economy policy created new mandate for geoscientists. The historical analysis of EU policies and law portray a steady increase in the duties of geologists. The current positive legislation trend favours a proactive initiative for professional lobbying organisations, such as EFG, EGS, Euromines, to promote a harmonised assessment and permitting schemes for all underground resources to ensure a more sustainable utilisation of finite assets through good governance.
Author Contributions: Tamas Hamor: conceptualisation, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft preparation; Pavlos Tyrologou: formal analysis, validation, writing—review and editing; Maria Hamor-Vido: supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, data curation, visualisation.
Funding: This paper is a deliverable of Project No. K142550, which has been implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the K_22 funding scheme.
Acknowledgments: The authors express their gratitude to the peer-reviewers who assured this paper’s professional quality.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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