Brussels, Belgium, July 24, 2002 -- The European Commission has acted to safeguard Europe's environment by pursuing infringement procedures against several Member States.
The Commission is concerned that the Member States have not complied with an EU law that requires an assessment of environmental impact for public and private projects.
The United Kingdom and France are to be referred to the Court of Justice due to shortcomings in their national legislation on environmental impact assessment.
In addition, the United Kingdom has received formal warnings for failing to carry out an environmental impact assessment for the White City project in London and for a project involving the burning of wastes in cement kilns in Lancashire.
France has received a similar formal warning for failing to undertake a thorough environmental impact assessment for the motorway ring road around Tours.
Two formal warnings have been sent to Italy for failing to undertake environmental impact assessments for a yacht marina project in Chieti and a waste facility in Brescia. Austria has received a formal request to bring its legislation for the environmental impact assessment of projects aimed at restructuring rural landholdings into line with the Directive.
The formal warnings and request take the form of so-called 'reasoned opinions', the second stage of formal infringement procedures under Article 226 of the EC Treaty. In the absence of a satisfactory reply within two months of receipt, the Commission may refer the cases to the Court of Justice.
Commenting on the decisions, Margot Wallstrom, the Environment Commissioner, said: "I regret that the Commission has had to remind Member States to ensure that environmentally significant projects are assessed correctly before they are allowed to proceed. Impact assessment is a key tool for achieving sustainable development in the European Union."
France
Two Commission decisions have been taken concerning impact assessment in France. The first refers France to the Court of Justice for its failure to implement correctly the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive.
The Commission considers that French legislation fails to ensure adequately that small projects which are cumulatively rather than individually significant are first screened to determine whether an impact assessment is required. This decision follows a Commission investigation into complaints relating to intensive poultry breeding installations in the Bay de Mont St. Michel area, but the case refers to general shortcomings in the French legislation.
The second decision is to send France a Reasoned Opinion as the environmental impact assessment that was carried out for a motorway ring road around Tours failed to address its impact on important natural habitats. The Commission considers that this was a significant omission and that the impact assessment was flawed as a consequence.
United Kingdom
Three Commission decisions have been taken concerning impact assessment in the United Kingdom.
The first is to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice for failing to implement adequate legislation requiring impact assessments be carried out on water management projects and projects relating to the use of uncultivated land or natural areas.
The second decision is to send the United Kingdom a Reasoned Opinion as a result of its failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment on a major urban development project at White City in London. The development is one of the largest projects ever proposed for London, and consists of a large shopping and leisure centre covering a surface area of at least 60,000 m2 and including 4,500 car parking spaces covering 16 hectares.
The third decision is to send the United Kingdom a Reasoned Opinion for the failure to undertake an environmental impact assessment with regard to a change in the fuel used at cement kilns in Lancashire. This change involved the burning of hazardous as well as non-hazardous wastes.
The Commission considers that, before being approved, this change should have been environmentally assessed in accordance with the Impact Assessment Directive.
The failure to undertake an assessment in this type of case is in part a consequence of the United Kingdom restriction of application of the Impact Asessment Directive to land-use planning decisions, an approach which the Commission considers as too narrow.
Italy
The Commission has decided to send Italy a Reasoned Opinion following the decision of Italian authorities that an environmental impact assessment was not necessary for a yacht marina project at Fossacesia (Chieti).
The Commission is not convinced that, in reaching this conclusion, the authorities took sufficient account of a nearby site that has been nominated for special protection under the Habitats Directive.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive requires authorities to take full account of such sensitive locations when determining whether or not an environment impact assessment of a project is needed.
Italy is also to receive a Reasoned Opinion for failing to subject a hazardous waste facility in Brescia to an environmental impact assessment before development consent was granted.
Although an environmental impact assessment was carried out at a later date, the results did not adequately reflect the conditions under which the plant operates. The Commission considers that Italy has also failed to adequately safeguard human health and the environment with regard to this facility, thereby contravening the Framework Waste Directive.
Austria
The Commission has decided to send a Reasoned Opinion to Austria following the failure of several states (Lander) to adopt rules for ensuring the environmental impact assessment of projects involving the restructuring of rural landholdings. The states concerned are Burgenland, Carinthia, Salzburg and Vorarlberg.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive
This Directive is an important part of EU environmental legislation. It requires Member States to carry out environmental impact assessments (EIA) on certain public and private projects, before they are authorised, where it is believed that the projects are likely to have a significant impact on the environment.
For some projects (such as motorway construction) listed in an Annex I to the Directive, such assessments are obligatory. For others (such as urban development projects) listed in Annex II, Member States must operate a screening system to determine which projects require assessment.
They can apply thresholds or criteria, carry out case-by-case examination or use a combination of these screening instruments, the aim being to ensure that all environmentally significant projects are assessed.
The objective of an EIA is to identify and describe the environmental impacts of projects and to assess whether prevention or mitigation is appropriate. During the EIA procedure, the public can provide input and express environmental concerns with regard to the project. The results of this consultation must be taken into account during the authorisation process.
The necessary national legislation should have been implemented by July 1988. An amendment to the Directive was adopted in 1997. While retaining the basic framework of the original Directive, the amendment reinforced many of the Directive's details.
Member States were required to adopt the necessary national legislation to take account of this amendment by March 1999.
For current statistics on infringements in general see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/sgb/droit_com/index_en.htm#infractions.
