Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2017:249
Date: 2017-03-30
Language of the case: Italian
Subject matter: Environment
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 26 July 2017 Environment — Assessment of the effects of certain projects on the environment — Directive 85/337 — Obligation of the competent authority to carry out an assessment prior to granting consent — Failure to carry out an assessment — Obligation of the authority to remedy that failure — Scope — Assessment carried out for regularisation purposes after the plant concerned has been constructed and has entered into operation — Conditions (Art. 4 TEU; Council Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 2009/31, Art. 2(1)) In the event of failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment required under Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, EU law, on the one hand, requires Member States to nullify the unlawful consequences of that failure and, on the other hand, does not preclude regularisation through the conducting of an impact assessment, after the plant concerned has been constructed and has entered into operation, on condition that: – national rules allowing for that regularisation do not provide the parties concerned with an opportunity to circumvent the rules of EU law or to dispense with applying them, and – an assessment carried out for regularisation purposes is not conducted solely in respect of the plant’s future environmental impact, but must also take into account its environmental impact from the time of its completion. (see para. 43, operative part)