Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Actions for failure to fulfil obligations ° Consideration by the Court of the merits ° Situation to be taken into account ° Situation at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion

(EC Treaty, Art. 169)

2. Environment ° Assessment of the effects of certain projects on the environment ° Directive 85/337 ° Subjection to assessment of projects of the classes listed in Annex II ° Discretion of the Member States ° Extent and limits

(Council Directive 83/337, Art. 4(2))

3. Member States ° Obligations ° Failure to fulfil ° Failure to fulfil specific obligations arising under a directive and failure to fulfil the general obligation arising under Article 5 of the Treaty

(EC Treaty, Arts 5 and 169)

Summary

1. In proceedings brought under Article 169 of the Treaty, the question whether there has been a failure to fulfil obligations must be examined on the basis of the position in which the Member State found itself at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion and the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes.

2. Article 4(2) of Directive 85/337 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment provides that projects of the classes listed in Annex II to the directive are to be made subject to an assessment where Member States consider that their characteristics so require and that Member States may, to this end, specify certain types of projects as being subject to an assessment or establish the criteria and/or thresholds necessary to determine which of the projects of the classes concerned are to be subject to an assessment. That provision must be interpreted as meaning that it does not empower the Member States to exclude generally and definitively one or more classes subject to possible assessment, since the criteria and/or the thresholds mentioned are not designed to exempt in advance from that obligation certain whole classes of projects listed in Annex II which may be envisaged on the territory of a Member State, but only to facilitate the examination of the actual characteristics exhibited by a given project in order to determine whether it is subject to that obligation.

3. Where a Member State has failed to fulfil its specific obligations under a directive, no purpose is served by considering the question whether it has thereby also failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 5 of the Treaty.