The Communiqué on Qualification Certificate for Environmental Impact Assessment (“Communiqué”) updating the principles and procedures, conditions, application process, and audit procedures regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment (“EIA”) qualification certificate, has entered into force on 29 November 2019.

Under the Communiqué, establishments applying to obtain an EIA qualification certificate must;

  • Employ at least two environmental engineers with a minimum of five years of working experience in the public or private sector focusing on environmental issues, who have participated
    • in the preparation of at least 25 project presentation files or final EIA Reports or
    • at least 10 Evaluation and Review Commission meetings.
  • Employ at least two personnel who have obtained bachelors’ degree for different professions (except the environmental engineer) as specified under the Communiqué;
  • Score at least 70 points from the EIA process evaluation forms.

If institutions or establishments receiving the certificate of competence fail to fulfill their obligations, the sanctions in conjunction with the penalty score system in the Additional Penalty Score Table annexed to the Communiqué shall apply.

Certificate of the relevant institution shall be:

  • Suspended for 180 days in the event of having 100 penalty points within the visa period,
  • Canceled in case penalty points reach 200,
  • Canceled in case of detection of untrue information.

In case of cancellation of the certificate, related institution and its shareholders cannot apply to be a qualified EIA institution for two years from the date of cancellation or become shareholders thereof. 

Communiqué determines the term of the EIA qualification certificate as four years from the date of issuance.

Applications for the qualification certificate are received electronically. The applications will be rejected if the necessary information and documents are not completed within 30 days.

Institutions and establishments having a qualification certificate before the effective date of the Communiqué are obliged to meet the minimum qualification personnel requirement by the end of the visa period determined under the Communiqué.

For institutions and establishments having less than one month to the end of the visa period as of the date of publication of the Communiqué, an additional 60 days will be granted to meet the minimum personnel requirements.

Full text of the Communiqué published in the Official Gazette dated 29 November 2019 and numbered 30963 can be found at this link (only available in Turkish).