Keywords
Operative part

Keywords

1. Environment – Assessment of the effects of certain projects on the environment – Directive 85/337 – Obligation of the Member States to ensure that projects likely to have a significant impact on the environment are made subject to an environmental assessment – Scope

(Council Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, Art. 2(1))

2. Environment – Assessment of the effects of certain projects on the environment – Directive 85/337 – Determination by the Member States of the projects in the classes listed in Annex II requiring to be made subject to an environmental assessment

(Council Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, Art. 4 and Annexes II and III)

3. Environment – Assessment of the effects of certain projects on the environment – Directive 85/337 – Determination by the Member States of the projects in the classes listed in Annex II requiring to be made subject to an environmental assessment

(Council Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, Art. 4 and Annexes II and III)

Operative part

On those grounds, the Court (Sixth Chamber) hereby rules:

1. Article 2(1) of Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, as amended by Council Directive 97/11/EC of 3 March 1997, must be interpreted as not requiring that any project likely to have a significant effect on the environment be made subject to the environmental impact assessment provided for in that directive, but only those referred to in Annexes I and II to that directive, under the conditions set out in Article 4 thereof and subject to Articles 1(4) and (5) and 2(3) of that directive.

2. Member States are required to take into account the relevant selection criteria listed in Annex III to Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, when they determine, in respect of the projects in the classes listed in Annex II thereto, either on the basis of case-by-case assessments or on the basis of thresholds or criteria fixed by the Member State, whether those projects must be subject to the environmental impact assessment procedure.

3. Where a Member State opts for determining on a case-by-case basis those of the projects in the classes listed in Annex II to Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, which must be made subject to an environmental impact assessment, it must, either by referring in its national rules to Annex III to that directive or by reproducing in its national rules the criteria listed there, ensure that all of those criteria can in fact be taken into account where one or more of them is relevant for the purposes of the project concerned, and cannot expressly or impliedly exclude them.