Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2010:220
Date: 2010-04-22
Language of the case: Greek
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Subject matter: Environment
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Greece

Summary of the Judgment Environment – Protection of forests – Monitoring of forests and environmental interactions – Regulation No 2152/2003 (European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2152/2003, Art. 3(a) and (b)) Article 3(a) and (b) of Regulation No 2152/2003 concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus), which define, for the purposes of that regulation, the terms ‘forest’ and ‘wooded land’, must be interpreted as not precluding national provisions which contain different definitions of those terms as regards actions which are not governed by the regulation. While, in order to implement the forest monitoring scheme, the Community legislature sought to define the areas covered by that scheme, none of the provisions of Regulation No 2152/2003 indicates that the regulation was designed to establish common rules for governing other actions. Thus, Article 3 of the regulation did not have the aim and cannot have the effect of precluding any other definition of what constitutes the forests and wooded areas that the Member States would seek to make subject to any action programmes other than those governed by the regulation. (see paras 25-26, 28, operative part)