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1. For the purpose of this Regulation:

(a) ‘applicant’ means any natural or legal person requesting environmental information;

(b) ‘the public’ means one or more natural or legal persons, and associations, organisations or groups of such persons;

(c) ‘ Union ◄ institution or body’ means any public institution, body, office or agency established by, or on the basis of, TFEU ◄ except when acting in a judicial or legislative capacity. However, the provisions under Title II shall apply to Union ◄ institutions or bodies acting in a legislative capacity;

(d) ‘environmental information’ means any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on:

(i) the state of the elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites including wetlands, coastal and marine areas, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;

(ii) factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment referred to in point (i);

(iii) measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in points (i) and (ii) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements;

(iv) reports on the implementation of environmental legislation;

(v) cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in point (iii);

(vi) the state of human health and safety, including the contamination of the food chain, where relevant, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures in as much as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment referred to in point (i) or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in points (ii) and (iii);

(e) ‘plans and programmes relating to the environment’ means plans and programmes, (i) which are subject to preparation and, as appropriate, adoption by a Union ◄ institution or body;

(ii) which are required under legislative, regulatory or administrative provisions; and (iii) which contribute to, or are likely to have significant effects on, the achievement of the objectives of Union ◄ environmental policy, such as laid down in the Sixth Union ◄ Environment Action Programme, or in any subsequent general environmental action programme. General environmental action programmes shall also be considered as plans and programmes relating to the environment. This definition shall not include financial or budget plans and programmes, namely those laying down how particular projects or activities should be financed or those related to the proposed annual budgets, internal work programmes of a Union ◄ institution or body, or emergency plans and programmes designed for the sole purpose of civil protection;

(f) ‘environmental law’ means Union ◄ legislation which, irrespective of its legal basis, contributes to the pursuit of the objectives of Union ◄ policy on the environment as set out in TFEU ◄ : preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, protecting human health, the prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources, and promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems;

(g) ‘administrative act’ means any non-legislative act adopted by a Union institution or body, which has legal and external effects and contains provisions that may contravene environmental law within the meaning of point (f) of Article 2(1);

(h) ‘administrative omission’ means any failure of a Union institution or body to adopt a non-legislative act which has legal and external effects, where such failure may contravene environmental law within the meaning of point (f) of Article 2(1).

2. Administrative acts and administrative omissions shall not include measures taken or omissions by a Union ◄ institution or body in its capacity as an administrative review body, such as under:

(a) Articles 81, 82, 86 and 87 of TFEU ◄ (competition rules);

(b) Articles 226 and 228 of TFEU ◄ (infringement proceedings);

(c) Article 195 of TFEU ◄ (Ombudsman proceedings);

(d) Article 280 of TFEU ◄ (OLAF proceedings).