Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Environment — Assessment of the environmental effects of certain projects — Directive 85/337 — Obligation on the competent authorities to carry out an assessment before consent is granted — Meaning of consent for the purposes of Article 1(2) — Decision laying down new conditions for a project to resume mining operations — Included — (Council Directive 85/337, Arts 1(2), 2(1) and 4(2))

2. Environment — Assessment of the environmental effects of certain projects — Directive 85/337 — Obligation on the competent authorities to carry out an assessment before consent is granted — Obligation not being directly linked to the performance of another obligation falling, pursuant to the directive, on a third party — Ability of an individual to rely on the directive — (Council Directive 85/337, Arts 1(2), 2(1) and 4(2))

3. Environment — Assessment of the environmental effects of certain projects — Directive 85/337 — Obligation on the competent authorities to carry out an assessment before consent is granted — Failure to carry out the assessment — Obligation on the authorities to remedy the failure — Scope — Application of the detailed procedural rules under national law — (Art. 10 EC; Council Directive 85/337, Art. 2(1))

Summary

1. Article 2(1) of Directive 85/337 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment ─ which provides that Member States are to adopt all measures necessary to ensure that, before consent is given, projects likely to have significant effects on the environment are made subject to an assessment with regard to their effects ─ read in conjunction with Article 4(2) of that directive, is to be interpreted as meaning that, in the context of applying provisions such as section 22 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and Schedule 2 to that Act, which lay down a special set of rules for old mining permissions, the decisions adopted by the competent authorities, whose effect is to permit the resumption of mining operations, comprise, as a whole, a " development consent" within the meaning of Article 1(2) of the directive, so that the competent authorities are obliged, where appropriate, to carry out an environmental impact assessment.

In a consent procedure comprising several stages, that assessment must, in principle, be carried out as soon as it is possible to identify and assess all the effects which the project may have on the environment.

see paras 42, 53, operative part 1

2. Where there is an obligation on the Member State concerned to ensure that the competent authorities carry out an assessment of the environmental effects of the working of a quarry, which is not directly linked to the performance of any obligation which would fall, pursuant to Directive 85/337, on the quarry owners, the fact that the latter must, because of the belated performance of that obligation by the State, suffer the halting of those mining operations in order to await the outcome of the assessment cannot prevent an individual from relying on Article 2(1) of that directive, read in conjunction with Articles 1(2) and 4(2) thereof.

Mere adverse repercussions on the rights of third parties, even if the repercussions are certain, do not justify preventing an individual from invoking the provisions of a directive against the Member State concerned.

see paras 57-58, 61, operative part 2

3. Under Article 10 EC, the competent authorities of a Member State are obliged to take, within the sphere of their competence, all general or particular measures for remedying the failure to carry out an assessment of the environmental effects of a project as provided for in Article 2(1) of Directive 85/337.

The detailed procedural rules applicable in that context are a matter for the domestic legal order of each Member State, under the principle of procedural autonomy of the Member States, provided that they are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic situations (principle of equivalence) and that they do not render impossible in practice or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by the Community legal order (principle of effectiveness).

In that regard, it is for the national court to determine whether it is possible under national law for a consent already granted to be revoked or suspended in order to subject the project to an assessment of its environmental effects, in accordance with the requirements of that directive, or alternatively, if the individual so agrees, whether it is possible for the latter to claim compensation for the harm suffered.

see para. 70, operative part 3