WRITTEN QUESTION E-0051/01

by Joaquim Miranda (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(22 January 2001)

Subject: Environmental impact of the construction of a road in Arouca (Portugal)

A call to tender is about to be issued for the construction of a road to create the Feira/IC2/Arouca link in the district of Aveiro in Portugal.

It will be an essential road link and the Portuguese Government has submitted or will be submitting an application to the Commission to fund the project.

However, the route of the road, in particular a section approximately two kilometres long in the valley of the river Arda, is facing great opposition, not least from various local organisations, since it will clearly have an adverse effect on the environment and landscape.

Furthermore, an environmental impact assessment already carried out indicates that in the section of the route referred to the occupation of the land alongside the river Arda will have a significant impact.

Nevertheless, not only are the authorities insisting on building the section of road, but have found a way of circumventing national and Community legislation on the subject, which in particular make environmental impact studies compulsory. This is the only explanation for the fact that a separate project for a distance of 9,9 kilometres (which includes the disputed section) is being drawn up, even though it is part of a road the total length of which is more than 30 kilometres.

In view of the above, can the Commission say:

1. whether or not it already knows about this situation and whether or not it has received an application for funding for the project;

2. how it intends to react in view of the environmental impact of building this stretch of road; whether or not it will make funding for it subject to consideration of the environmental impact studies carried out on it, and whether it accepts that the road project is being split up to prevent these studies from being taken into account?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(7 March 2001)

The Feira/IC2/Arouca road construction project is the subject of a complaint lodged with the Commission. It is being investigated at present. If it is found that there has been an infringement of Community legislation, the Commission will obviously draw the necessary conclusions with regard to future Community funding.

In addition, according to information received from the Portuguese authorities, this project has not been, up to this point, presented to the Commission for co-funding either under the Structural Funds or under the Cohesion Fund.

On first analysis, it was found that it appears to concern a project for a two-lane road covered by point 10(d) of Annex II to Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment,(1) as amended by Council Directive 97/11/EC of 3 March 1997.(2) An environmental impact assessment under the terms of this Directive is, in principle, left to the Member States to carry out.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that the Member States have complete discretionary power, this being limited by Article 2 of the abovementioned Directive. The Member States have to take the necessary steps to ensure that projects likely to have significant effects on the environment are subject to both a request for development consent and an impact assessment procedure before any permits are granted.

If necessary, the Commission will ask the Portuguese authorities, as part of the above investigation, for further details on how the impact assessment procedure for the project in question was carried out.

(1) OJ L 175, 5.7.1985.

(2) OJ L 73, 14.3.1997.