Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

Environment ° Conservation of wild birds ° Directive 79/409 ° Choice and delimitation of Special Protection Areas ° Criteria available ° Exclusion of economic requirements, even those which constitute a general interest superior to ecological interests or amount to imperative reasons of overriding public interest

(Council Directives 79/409, Arts 2 and 4(1) and (2), and 92/43, Art. 6(4))

Summary

Article 4(1) or Article 4(2) of Directive 79/409 on the conservation of wild birds, which requires the Member States to take special conservation measures for certain species, and in particular to designate as Special Protection Areas the most suitable territories for their conservation, must be interpreted as meaning that a Member State is not authorized to take account of the economic requirements mentioned in Article 2 of the directive when choosing and defining the boundaries of a Special Protection Area or even to take account of economic requirements constituting a general interest superior to that represented by the ecological objective of that directive.

Similarly, a Member State may not take account of economic requirements in so far as they amount to imperative reasons of overriding public interest of the kind referred to in Article 6(4) of Directive 92/43 on the conservation of the natural habitats of wild fauna and flora, as inserted in Directive 79/409. Although the latter provision widened the range of grounds on which it may be justified to encroach upon Special Protection Areas already designated as such, by expressly including therein reasons of a social or economic nature, it nevertheless did not make any change regarding the initial stage of classification referred to in Article 4(1) and (2) of Directive 79/409, and therefore the classification of sites as Special Protection Areas must in all circumstances be carried out in accordance with the criteria accepted by those provisions.