Case C‑379/15

Association France Nature Environnement

v

Premier ministre

and

Ministre de l’Écologie, du Développement durable et de l'Énergie

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the

Conseil d’État (France))

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Directive 2001/42/EC — Assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment — National measure incompatible with EU law — Legal consequences — Power of the national court to maintain certain effects of that measure provisionally — Third paragraph of Article 267 TFEU — Obligation to make a reference to the Court for a preliminary ruling’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 28 July 2016

1. Environment — Assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment — Directive 2001/42 — Annulment by a national court of national provisions incompatible with the obligations arising from Directive 2001/42 — Possibility of maintaining the effects of the disputed provisions — Conditions

   (Art. 3, third para., TEU; Art. 191(1) and (2) TFEU; European Parliament and Council Directive 2001/42, Art. 6(3))

2. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Reference to the Court — Issues of interpretation — Obligation to seek a preliminary ruling — Scope — Question regarding the possibility of maintaining in force national provisions held to be contrary to EU environmental law — Included — Conditions

   (Art. 267, third para., TFEU)

1.  A national court may, when this is allowed by domestic law, exceptionally and on a case-by-case basis, limit in time certain effects of a declaration of the illegality of a provision of national law adopted in disregard of the obligations provided for by Directive 2001/42 on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment, in particular the obligations arising from Article 6(3) of the directive, provided that such a limitation is dictated by an overriding consideration linked to environmental protection and having regard to the specific circumstances of the case pending before it. That exceptional power may, however, be exercised only if all the conditions are satisfied, namely:

   —	that the contested provision of national law constitutes a measure correctly transposing EU law on environmental protection;

   —	that the adoption and coming into force of a new provision of national law do not make it possible to avoid the damaging effects on the environment arising from annulment of the contested provision of national law;

   —

   that annulment of the contested provision of national law would have the effect of creating a legal vacuum concerning the transposition of EU law on environmental protection which would be more damaging to the environment, in the sense that that annulment would result in lesser protection and would thus run counter to the essential objective of EU law; and

   —	that any exceptional maintaining of the effects of the contested provision of national law lasts only for the period strictly necessary for the adoption of the measures making it possible to remedy the irregularity found.

   (see para. 43, operative part 1)

2.  As EU law currently stands, a national court against whose decisions there is no longer any judicial remedy under law is in principle required to make a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, so that the Court may assess whether, exceptionally, provisions of national law held to be contrary to EU law may be provisionally maintained in the light of an overriding consideration linked to environmental protection and in view of the specific circumstances of the case pending before that national court. That national court is relieved of that obligation only when it is convinced, which it must establish in detail, that no reasonable doubt exists as to the interpretation and application of the conditions set out in the judgment of 28 February 2012 in Inter-Environnement Wallonie and Terre wallonne (C‑41/11).

   (see para. 53, operative part 2)