Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2009:397
Date: 2009-06-25
Language of the case: German
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Environment
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Austria

summary of any difficulties encountered by him in compiling the required information. 52 – That approach constitutes a requirement of consistency in legislative texts as a whole, which the Court laid down, inter alia, in its judgments in Case C-164/98 P DIR International Film and Others v Commission [2000] ECR I‑447, paragraphs 21 to 30, and Case C-225/91 MATRA v Commission [1993] ECR I‑3203, paragraph 41. 53 – Points 1, 2, 5 and 18(b). 54 – Points 10, 12, 13, 15, 18(b) and 21. 55 – Points 7, 8, 16, 19 and 20. 56 – Moreno Molina, A.M., Derecho comunitario del medio ambiente. Marco institucional, regulación sectorial y aplicación en España, Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2006, p. 201. 57 – Judgments in Case 7/68 Commission v Italy [1968] ECR 617; Case C-6/98 ARD [1999] ECR I‑7599, paragraphs 9 to 31; and Case C-321/96 [1998] ECR I‑3809, paragraph 25. 58 – Point 1, first indent, of Annex IV. 59 – Point 1, third indent, of Annex IV. 60 – Point 3 of Annex IV. 61 – Case C-227/01 [2004] ECR 8253. 62 – Judgment in Commission v Spain, paragraph 53. 63 – In point 48 of his Opinion, the Advocate General states: ‘As a railway line 251 km long is constructed in stages, if Spain’s reasoning were followed it would mean that a specific project would never be regarded as involving long-distance traffic because the successive sections of the line would all cover small distances and would connect neighbouring places. Adopting this interpretation of the Directive would be likely to restrict its scope considerably and to jeopardise the attainment of its objective.’ 64 – Case C-201/02 [2004] ECR I‑723. 65 – Case C-508/03 [2006] ECR I‑3969. 66 – Case C-290/03 [2006] ECR I‑3949. 67 – Barker, paragraph 48. 68 – Case C-2/07 [2008] ECR I‑1197. 69 – Paragraph 36. 70 – Case C-142/07 [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 44. 71 – Kraaijeveld and Others, paragraph 31; WWF and Others, paragraph 40; Commission v Spain, paragraph 46; and Abraham, paragraph 32. 72 – Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 between the Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (OJ 2000 L 239, p. 19), concluded on 19 June 1990 in Schengen, Luxembourg. 73 – An instrument to which the European Community acceded by Council Decision of 15 October 1996 on the adoption of the Convention on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context (unpublished). 74 – That assertion follows from Article 7(2), which provides that, if a Member State which receives information pursuant to paragraph 1 indicates that it intends to participate in the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure, the Member State in whose territory the project is intended to be carried out is, if it has not already done so, to send to the affected Member State the information gathered pursuant to Article 5. Article 7 provides for a situation in which a project takes place in a single Member State but has effects on a neighbouring country or countries. 75 – Otherwise it would make little sense to create a Community environmental policy. Based on the experiences of federal states, the Community drew up an environmental agenda on this subject, which aims to avoid the difficulties inherent in the plurality of laws and to ensure that the policy is applied at territorial level. The United States model is highly significant, since, like the Community, it adopts harmonised legal instruments calling for the cooperation of the individual states. Hall, N.D., ‘Political Externalities, Federalism, and a Proposal for an Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy’, Harvard Environmental Law Review, No 32, 2008, and Revesz, R.L., ‘Environmental Regulation in Federal Systems’, Yearbook of European Environmental Law, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 10 to 14.