WRITTEN QUESTION E-1032/02

by Elizabeth Lynne (ELDR) to the Commission

(15 April 2002)

Subject: Destruction of valuable wildlife habitats across Eastern and Central Europe as a result of the development of transport infrastructure

The EU provides financial aid for the development of transport infrastructure in Eastern and Central Europe. The Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) report provides a blueprint for this development in the applicant countries. However, there is some concern that sites of international importance for the conservation of birds, or Important Bird Areas (IBAs), will be destroyed as a result of the work done on the TINA network. A recent study by Birdlife International found that at least 21 % of IBAs are likely to face damage from developments under TINA. This is in conflict with EU environmental legislation on nature conservation.

What reliable measures does the Commission have to protect IBAs and other sites of high conservation value in the EU applicant countries which are potentially damaging transport infrastructure developments under TINA? What plans does the Commission have to prepare a Strategic Environment Assessment of the TINA network in the EU applicant countries?

Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission

(6 June 2002)

Community environmental legislation will apply in the candidate countries only from accession onwards. However, the Commission strongly encourages candidate countries to apply and implement the provisions of the environmental acquis during the pre-accession period.

As long as candidate countries have not yet prepared their lists of sites of Community importance in order to establish the Natura 2000 network, the following types of sites shall be regarded as environmentally sensitive areas in the field of nature protection: sites listed in the latest inventory on Important Bird Areas (IBA) for candidate countries and, if available, equivalent more detailed scientific inventories endorsed by national authorities; wetlands of international importance designated under the Ramsar Convention or qualifying for such protection; areas to which the Bern Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats applies, in particular sites meeting the criteria of the Emerald network; areas protected under national nature conservation legislation.

In cases where Community pre-accession funding for large infrastructure developments is concerned, similar standards to those set by Community environmental legislation need to be applied before any Community funding can be granted to the candidate countries. This involves, inter alia, the application of Council Directive 97/11/EC of 3 March 1997on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment(1). In addition, the candidate country will also have to investigate whether environmentally sensitive areas are affected which might fall in future under the protection of Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flaura(2) or Council Directive 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds(3).

If the project has a significant negative impact on the site, the Commission requests the candidate country to provide evidence that alternatives have been studied, on the reasoning why the proposed project has been maintained and on the means that will be taken to compensate the negative impact. Only if all relevant information has been provided will a project be eligible for the Instrument for Structural Policy for Pre-Accession (ISPA) funding and can be approved by the Commission.

The design of the TINA network has not yet incorporated the strategic environmental evaluation in as much as no recommended and approved methodology is yet available. However, rules to respect areas already identified as ecologically sensitive have been applied. Since then, methods of analysis to carry out the strategic environmental evaluation of transport infrastructure plans have been developed and tested, particularly as part of the fourth framework programme for research and development and through pilot studies of transport corridors.

Furthermore, as part of the forthcoming revision of guidelines for the trans-European transport networks (TENs-T) planned for 2004 and announced in the White Paper on European transport policy up to 2010, the projects identified by the TINA report are presumed to be incorporated into those networks. It is in preparation for that revision that the Commission is preparing methods for the strategic environmental evaluation of the TENs-T.

(1) OJ L 73, 14.3.1997.

(2) OJ L 206, 22.7.1992.

(3) OJ L 103, 25.4.1979.