WRITTEN QUESTION P-2849/02

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(4 October 2002)

Subject: Recognition of D'Hoppebos as a habitat conservation area

The Natura 2000 network, created by the Commission on the basis of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC(1)) and the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC(2)), establishes areas of Europe where the protection and conservation of the biological diversity of fauna and flora are the highest priority.

In Belgium, two conservation areas in particular have been, or are being, put forward by the Walloon and Flemish regions:

- the Pottelberghbos, which the Walloon region intends to propose,

- the Brakelbos, which was proposed in 1996 by the Flemish region,

However, it is striking that D'Hoppebos (which forms part of the same habitat area as the abovementioned woods) has not been put forward as a conservation area by the Walloon region. Splitting up the area in this way negates the efforts made by the Commission. The region is only habitable for protected species if the various woods are treated as a single, connected area. In the case of a number of species, this is even an essential condition for their survival.

Furthermore, D'Hoppebos has for years been used as a waste dump by the Fort-Labiau group. The company recently applied for a ten-year extension of its environmental permit for the dump. The results of various analyses included in the official environmental impact report show that both groundwater and surface water have been polluted by numerous chemical substances. Since the adoption of the Habitats Directive, conditions in this natural habitat have significantly deteriorated. The waste dump presents a flaw which has affected some 20 ha of woodland. A road whose foundations are partly made of waste has been built barely a few tens of metres away from the Brakelbos.

In the light of the provisions of the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, do the above facts constitute sufficient grounds for instituting a bilateral consultation procedure between the Commission and the Member States pursuant to Article 5(1)?

Was Community financing for Walloon structural funds not suspended in the autumn on the grounds that lists of areas submitted were incomplete? Would it not therefore be appropriate to include the D'Hoppebos in the relevant list?

(1) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992, p. 7.

(2) OJ L 103, 25.4.1979, p. 1.

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(25 October 2002)

The bilateral concertation procedure the Honourable Member refers to and which is provided for in Article 5(1) of Directive 92/43/EEC(1) only applies in exceptional cases where the Commission finds that a list of sites proposed by a Member State fails to mention a site hosting a priority natural habitat type or priority species which, on the basis of relevant and reliable scientific information, it considers to be essential for the maintenance of that priority natural habitat site or for the survival of that priority species. In the case referred to by the Honourable Member, the Commission has insufficient scientific information to conclude that the procedure needs to be applied.

As regards D'Hoppebos being proposed as a site of Community importance under Article 4(1) of Directive 93/43/EEC, the Commission has yet to receive formal communication of the new list of sites adopted by the Walloon Government on 27 September 2002 and so is unable, at present, to check whether that Government has proposed the wood as a potential site of Community importance under the Directive. It should also be noted that it falls to the Member State to apply the selection criteria set out in Annex III to the Directive. These relate in particular to the representativeness, surface area and degree of conservation of the natural habitats present on the site in question, and to the populations of species present. The Member State has a margin of appreciation in applying these criteria. On the basis of the information supplied by the Honourable Member, the Commission is unable to judge whether the Walloon Government has misused its discretionary power in applying the site selection criteria by failing to propose the site in question as a site of Community importance.

The Commission recently received a complaint concerning the operation of a waste burial centre on the site in question. In this context, it could ask the Walloon Government to provide it with due evidence that the provisions of Article 6(3) of Directive 93/43/EEC regarding assessment of the implications of plans or projects on sites protected by the Directive have been complied with.

The Commission can confirm that the Member of the Commission responsible for Regional Policy wrote on 14 June 2001 to the Minister-President of the Walloon Region, informing him of his decision to instruct the Commission's Directorate-General for Regional Policy to suspend payments for two measures in the Hainaut 2000-2006 Objective 1 Single Programming Document (SPD), liable, through their potential impact on the territory, to damage possible Natura 2000 sites. This suspension will be lifted as soon as the Walloon Region sends the Commission its list of Natura 2000 sites.

(1) Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.