Enforcement - Energy for Transport

Basic principles

Enforcement action by the NEa is based on the following principles:

• The NEa makes every effort to promote compliance through preventive measures.
• The NEa treats all companies equally. This means the NEa exercises due care and consistency in its assessments.
• In principle, the NEa primarily focuses on taking corrective action, i.e. ensuring that companies put a stop to a breach, by imposing periodic penalty payments, or by undoing the impact of a breach by officially determining the relevant facts.
• Whether the NEa also imposes punitive measures depends on the seriousness of the breach and other factors.

Advice and support

The NEa uses the enforcement measures available to it with due regard for the complexity of the legislation and regulations. Therefore, the NEa spends a great deal of time explaining the system through information sessions, training courses, information resources (newsletters), and support via the NEa helpdesk. Rather than focusing only on taking corrective and/or punitive action after the fact, the NEa prefers to prevent breaches as much as possible by providing targeted compliance support.

Legal basis

The legal provisions governing the supervision and monitoring of the Energy for Transport system are laid down in Section 5.10(1) of the Environmental Permitting (General Provisions) Act (Wet algemene bepalingen omgevingsrecht), Chapter 5 of the General Administrative Law Act (Algemene wet bestuursrecht), and Chapter 18 of the Environmental Management Act.

The latest versions of these laws are available at www.overheid.nl.

Enforcement tools

In its capacity as an independent regulator, the NEa assesses whether companies comply with the Energy for Transport legislation and regulations. The NEa also enforces this legislation and regulations and can therefore respond to identified breaches using a range of enforcement tools.