EU's Industrial Permitting Systems Are Too Slow and Too Fragmented

Getting permission to build a wind farm, open a semiconductor plant, or launch a pharmaceutical facility in the European Union is an exercise in institutional endurance. A landmark study published in January 2026, commissioned by the European Commission and carried out by Intellera Consulting, Accenture, and Wavestone, has confirmed what industry groups have long argued: permitting systems across the EU are slow, fragmented, and only partially digital. The study is the first systematic attempt to assess both the governance structures and the digital maturity of industrial permitting processes across member states.

A system built on fragmentation

Across the 14 member states examined, which span Northern, Western, Southern, and Central Europe, not a single country operates a unified digital platform capable of handling all permits for one industrial project. Companies routinely interact with between three and ten separate authorities spread across national, regional, and local levels of government, depending on the country and sector. Environmental permits tend to be handled at the regional level, while building and zoning approvals sit with municipalities, and licences for electricity generation or grid connection are managed nationally.

The study found that complexity is driven more by sector than by country. Each industry operates under its own regulatory architecture, with distinct competent authorities and procedural rules. The pharmaceutical sector tends toward centralised national oversight, while renewable energy projects face the most distributed and multi-layered permitting arrangements. Critical raw materials projects, particularly mining, encounter some of the most demanding conditions of all, partly because of the significant environmental reviews they require and the frequency of legal appeals that can extend timelines by years.

“"When project developers must interact with multiple authorities, the simple digitalisation of fragmented processes might not increase efficiency. Inefficiencies are just replicated from the offline environment to the digital one." — Study on Industrial Permitting Processes in the EU, European Commission, 2026”

The real cost of waiting

The administrative burden is substantial. Using a standard cost model applied to survey data, the researchers estimated that a single renewable energy project can require between two and more than ten full-time equivalent staff just to manage the permitting process. Depending on labour costs in each country, that translates to between roughly 119,000 euros and over 700,000 euros per project, before any indirect costs are counted. In Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, the upper-bound estimates exceed 700,000 euros.

Companies reported that delays lead to reduced profitability through higher sunk costs and deferred revenue, increased legal and reputational risk, postponed investment decisions, and loss of competitive position. Between 82 and 100 percent of project developer respondents agreed on each of these consequences. Yet when asked what they most wanted to see improved, developers consistently pointed to authorities rather than their own processes: better coordination between permitting bodies, stronger staffing at competent authorities, and more transparent timelines were the top requests.

Permitting authorities, for their part, saw things differently. A majority identified incomplete or low-quality applications from developers as the primary bottleneck, while relatively few flagged their own staffing or budget constraints as serious problems. This mutual attribution of blame points to a structural communication gap that digital tools alone are unlikely to resolve.

Digital maturity: a map of contrasts

The study assessed digital permitting platforms across five dimensions: process and workflow coverage, technical capabilities, interoperability, data security, and user experience. The results reveal a continent of sharp contrasts. Countries in Northern Europe, led by Denmark and Finland, operate fewer platforms with higher maturity, managed at the national level. Denmark's Byg og Miljø and Finland's Lupapiste consolidate building and environmental permits across sectors, and Denmark is piloting an AI-assisted permitting system called F2 that the Environmental Protection Agency reports has cut processing time by around 50 percent after digitalisation and AI integration.

The Netherlands stands out in Western Europe with its Omgevingsloket platform, launched in January 2024 alongside a sweeping regulatory consolidation that merged 26 laws into one framework. In its first year the platform recorded over six million interactions and nearly 194,000 permit applications. It has reduced the standard permitting timeline from 26 weeks to eight for regular cases. Ireland's national e-planning system, covering 30 of 31 local authorities, has lifted the electronic submission rate from 36 percent at launch to over 70 percent.

“"No Member State has a unified digital platform for permitting that makes it possible to secure all relevant permits for one project through a single integrated platform." — Study on Industrial Permitting Processes in the EU, European Commission, 2026”

Southern Europe presents the widest range of outcomes. Italy's SUAP ecosystem, which positions municipalities as legally mandated one-stop shops for businesses, processed around one million applications in 2023. However, reliance on certified email and weak system-to-system interoperability continue to introduce manual delays, and adoption across municipalities sits at around 53 percent. Spain, Greece, and Portugal each operate multiple sector-specific platforms with varying levels of maturity. Central European countries, including Czechia and Hungary, are building digital capacity but are still at early stages, with one-stop shops for the renewable energy sector planned for 2026.

What needs to change

The study's recommendations fall into three categories: governance, capacity building, and digitalisation. On governance, the researchers urge member states to clarify the roles and legal mandates of single points of contact, which currently exist on paper in all 14 countries studied but are often described by stakeholders as new institutions still building administrative capacity and financial resources. In some cases, they risk adding a bureaucratic layer rather than removing one.

On capacity, the study calls for systematic training for permitting staff, better data collection on processing times and costs, and EU-level peer learning mechanisms such as expanded use of the Commission's TAIEX technical assistance programme. A proposed Centre of Excellence at EU level drew strong support from participants in both stakeholder workshops, envisioned as a hub for procurement guidance, technical advice, and performance monitoring.

“"Digitalisation alone cannot solve systemic inefficiencies without a smooth and clear organisation of administrative processes." — Workshop participant, November 2025”

On digitalisation, the study stops short of prescribing a single model but sets out the features that project developers identified as essential in any effective digital one-stop shop: a unified dashboard showing all permit stages and responsible authorities, real-time status tracking, structured guidance and checklists, in-tool communication between developers and authorities, collaborative document management with version control, and integration with spatial and environmental data. AI was flagged as a promising tool for completeness checks and workflow management, though participants noted legal and procurement barriers to adoption within public authorities. The study's broader finding is that digital ambition without process reform is unlikely to deliver the faster, simpler permitting the EU's industrial strategy demands.

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