The Queen v Secretary of State for the Environment and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, ex parte H.A. Standley and Others and D.G.D. Metson and Others.
Date: 1999-04-29
30 It does not follow from the wording of that provision that the Member States are required to determine precisely what proportion of the pollution in the waters is attributable to nitrates of agricultural origin or that the cause of such pollution must be exclusively agricultural.
31 As is clear from the scheme of the Directive, the identification of waters within the meaning of Article 3(1) forms part of a process which also encompasses the designation of vulnerable zones and the establishment of action programmes.  It would thus be incompatible with the Directive to restrict the identification of waters affected by pollution to cases where agricultural sources alone give rise to a concentration of nitrates in excess of 50 mg/1 when, within the framework of that process, the Directive expressly provides that, in establishing the action programmes under Article 5, the respective nitrogen contributions originating from agricultural and other sources are to be taken into account.
35 The question whether the Directive applies only where the discharge of nitrogen compounds of agricultural origin makes a significant contribution to the pollution must be answered in the affirmative, given the objective of the Community legislature, namely to reduce and prevent water pollution caused or induced by nitrates from agricultural sources, and the scope of the measures envisaged for that purpose by Article 5.
36 However, the Directive does not preclude the Member States, if their national law so allows, from applying the provisions of the Directive in cases not covered by it.
37 When national courts review the legality of measures identifying waters affected by pollution in accordance with Article 3(1) of the Directive, as interpreted in this judgment, they must take account of the wide discretion enjoyed by the Member States which is inherent in the complexity of the assessments required of them in that context.
38 However, Community law cannot provide precise criteria for establishing in each case whether the discharge of nitrogen compounds of agricultural origin makes a significant contribution to the pollution.
39 The Directive may thus be applied by the Member States in different ways.  Nevertheless, such a consequence is not incompatible with the nature of the Directive, since it does not seek to harmonise the relevant national laws but to create the instruments needed in order to ensure that waters in the Community are protected against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources.  The Community legislature necessarily accepted that consequence when, in Annex I to the Directive, it granted the Member States a wide discretion in the identification of waters covered by Article 3(1).
51 As regards the polluter pays principle, suffice it to state that the Directive does not mean that farmers must take on burdens for the elimination of pollution to which they have not contributed.
54 As regards infringement of the right to property, the Court has consistently held that, while the right to property forms part of the general principles of Community law, it is not an absolute right and must be viewed in relation to its social function.  Consequently, its exercise may be restricted, provided that those restrictions in fact correspond to objectives of general interest pursued by the Community and do not constitute a disproportionate and intolerable interference, impairing the very substance of the rights guaranteed (Case 44/79 Hauer v Land Rheinland-Pfalz [1979] ECR 3727, paragraph 23, Case 265/87 Schräder v Hauptzollamt Gronau [1989] ECR 2237, paragraph 15, and Case C-280/93 Germany v Council [1994] ECR I-4973, paragraph 78).