Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2003:502
Date: 2003-09-25
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Environment;Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: United Kingdom

SUMMARY — CASE C-201/02 
Summary of the Judgment 
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)) 
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 meas­
ures 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 con­
junction with Article 4(2) of that 
directive, is to be interpreted as mean­
ing 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 resump­
tion 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 appro­
priate, to carry out an environmental 
impact assessment. 
In a consent procedure comprising 
several stages, that assessment must, 
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WELLS 
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 perform­
ance of that obligation by the State, 
suffer the halting of those mining 
operations in order to await the out­
come 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 par­
ticular 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 appli­
cable 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 simi­
lar domestic situations (principle of 
equivalence) and that they do not 
render impossible in practice or excess­
ively difficult the exercise of rights 
conferred by the Community legal 
order (principle of effectiveness). 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-201/02 
In that regard, it is for the national 
court to determine whether it is poss­
ible under national law for a consent 
already granted to be revoked or sus­
pended in order to subject the project 
to an assessment of its environmental 
effects, in accordance with the require­
ments of that directive, or alternatively, 
if the individual so agrees, whether it is 
possible for the latter to claim com­
pensation for the harm suffered. 
(see para. 70, operative part 3) 
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