Recital (80)

To support Member States in carrying out their obligations under this Directive, the Commission should, in cooperation with the Member States and other stakeholders, where relevant, draw up documents and develop scientific tools, including possible methodologies and procedures that could be applied. Those documents and scientific tools would provide in due time essential information for Member States, while ensuring the flexibility to build on methodologies and procedures already in place. Those documents and scientific tools should be complemented with the necessary assistance and capacity building. The Commission should provide to Member States the necessary capacity building and assistance and support multilateral harmonisation of methods, and thereby eliminate existing data gaps and workflow bottlenecks by sharing expertise. To that end, the Commission should build on existing mechanisms at Union and international level, including the Soil BON initiative, Global Soil Partnership, SOILveR, NICOLE, EUROSOLAN, the EU Mission’s A Soil Deal for Europe Mirror Groups and EIONET. The Commission should support cross-border cooperation between Member States to ensure that a harmonised approach to soil monitoring is taken and that there is a level playing field between neighbouring soil districts.