Lanzarote and La Graciosa create their Insular Environmental Evaluation Body

The Insular Council of Lanzarote and La Graciosa has definitively approved the Organic Regulation that creates and regulates the Insular Environmental Evaluation Body of Lanzarote and La Graciosa (OEAI), the new collegiate body that will report on plans, programs, and projects in the two islands. The regulation is published in full in the Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas number 118, dated Friday, October 2, 2026, with official reference 1.999.400, and will enter into force fifteen business days after its publication.

The approval is definitive because, following the public exhibition period of the initial approval—announced in the Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas number 79, dated July 3, 2026—no claims or suggestions were submitted. The initial approval agreement was adopted by the Plenary of the Council in an ordinary session on June 25, 2026, and the definitive text was signed in Arrecife on September 29, 2026, by the managing director Miguel Ángel Jiménez Cabrera, by delegation of signature from the president of the Council (Decree number 2023-4715, dated July 21, 2023).

The regulation is based on article 11.3 of Law 21/2013, of December 9, on environmental assessment, and on article 86.6.c) and 86.7 and the First Additional Provision of Law 4/2017, of July 13, on Land and Protected Natural Spaces of the Canary Islands, which empower the insular councils to designate their environmental body with functional and organic separation from the substantive body. The processing also complies with articles 49 b) and 70.2 of Law 7/1985, of April 2, and article 17 of R.D. Leg. 2/2004, of March 5.

Composition and mandate

• Presidency: one person, appointed by decree of the president of the Council from among the members of the body.
• Secretariat: one civil servant of subgroup A1, with a voice but no vote.
• Four members with their respective alternates, expandable by plenary agreement if the volume of matters warrants it.
• Appointment by the Plenary by absolute majority, with publication in the Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas.
• Five-year mandate, renewable for periods of equal duration.
• Headquarters at the Insular Council of Lanzarote, Avenida Fred Olsen, s/n, Arrecife.

The members act with independence, impartiality, and objectivity and cannot be removed except by expiration of the mandate, resignation, reasoned revocation, final conviction, death, or supervening incapacity. The incompatibility regime of Law 53/1984, of December 26, applies to them, and they must recuse themselves from proceedings processed by their own department.

What it evaluates and who it affects

The territorial scope covers the islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. The body acts in the strategic environmental assessment of plans and programs and in the environmental impact assessment of projects, whether of public or private initiative, whose approval, substantial modification, adaptation, or authorization corresponds to the Cabildo or to the municipalities that delegate the competence to it.

• City councils may delegate the competence or entrust the material or technical aspects through an agreement.
• In municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, the environmental assessment of the structural urban planning of general plans and their substantial modifications continues to correspond to the regional environmental body.
• The body will also report on plans and projects promoted by the public bodies of the Cabildo.

Operation and Entry into Force

Sessions are convened with a minimum of 48 hours’ notice (24 in urgent cases) and the quorum for the first call requires the presidency, secretary, and three members, with at least four members entitled to vote; for the second call, three are sufficient. Agreements are adopted by majority, with a casting vote held by the presidency. A Permanent Commission for Studies and Issuance of Reports is created, whose reports will not have direct effects against third parties, as well as an Administrative, Technical, and Legal Support Office.

No appeal shall lie against strategic environmental statements and reports or environmental impact statements and reports, without prejudice to those that may proceed against the act of approval of the plan or authorization of the project. The regulation will enter into force fifteen business days after its full publication in the Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas and must also be published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands and on the corporate website.

For promoters and city councils, the change implies a single environmental interlocutor within the insular scope: files will no longer be resolved in the services of the substantive body and will move to a collegiate body attached to the Presidency Area, with deadlines computed from the entry into the Official Registry of the Cabildo. Municipalities that delegate gain technical capacity but lose direct control of the assessment; promoters face a procedure with criteria of independence and impartiality, with per diems and remuneration still pending specification.

Source: Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas, number 118, October 2, 2026, section I, pp. 16924-16937 (official reference: 1.999.400).