Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:108
Date: 2000-03-07
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 of the Judgment 
Environment — Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora — 
Directive 92/43 — Sites of Community importance — Identification — Drawing up of 
the national list of sites — Taking account of economic, social and cultural requirements 
or regional and local characteristics — Not permitted 
(Council Directive 92/43, Arts 2(3), 3(1), first subpara., and 4(1)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-371/98 
Article 4(1) of Directive 92/43 on the 
conservation of natural habitats and of 
wild fauna and flora must be interpreted as 
meaning that a Member State may not take 
account of economic, social and cultural 
requirements or regional and local charac­
teristics, as mentioned in Article 2(3) of 
that directive, when selecting and defining 
the boundaries of the sites to be proposed 
to the Commission as eligible for identifi­
cation as sites of Community importance. 
To produce a draft list of sites of Commu­
nity importance, capable of leading to the 
creation of a coherent European ecological 
network of special areas of conservation; 
the Commission must have available an 
exhaustive list of the sites which, at 
national level, have an ecological interest 
which is relevant from the point of view of 
the directive's objective of conservation of 
natural habitats and wild fauna and flora. 
Only in that way is it possible to realise the 
objective, in the first subparagraph of 
Article 3(1) of Directive 92/43, of main­
taining or restoring the natural habitat 
types and the species' habitats concerned 
at a favourable conservation status in their 
natural range, which may lie across one or 
more frontiers inside the Community. Hav­
ing regard to the fact that, when a Member 
State draws up the national list of sites, it is 
not in a position to have precise detailed 
knowledge of the situation of habitats in 
the other Member States, it cannot of its 
own accord, whether because of economic, 
social or cultural requirements or because 
of regional or local characteristics, delete 
sites which at national level have an 
ecological interest relevant from the point 
of view of the objective of conservation 
without jeopardising the realisation of that 
objective at Community level. 
(see paras 22-23, 25 and operative part) 
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