Stadt Papenburg v Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Date: 2010-01-14
21. The Court may of its own motion, or on a proposal from the Advocate General, or at the request of the parties, order the reopening of the oral procedure in accordance with Article 61 of the Rules of Procedure if it considers that it lacks sufficient information, or that the case must be dealt with on the basis of an argument which has not been debated between the parties (see, inter alia, Case C‑284/06 Burda  [2008] ECR I-4571, paragraph 37, and Case C-42/07 Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional and Bwin International [2009] ECR I-0000, paragraph 31).
23. As regards the first point, it should be noted that, under Article 234 EC, which is based on a clear separation of functions between th e national courts and the Court of Justice, the latter is empowered only to give rulings on the interpretation or the validity of a Community provision on the basis of the facts which the national court puts before it (see, inter alia, Case 104/77 Oehlschläger  [1978] ECR 791, paragraph 4, and Case C-435/97 WWF and Others  [1999] ECR I-5613, paragraph 31); those facts, in conjunction with the legal material provided by the referring court, are to enable the Court to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C-11/07 Eckelkamp and Others  [2008] ECR I-6845, paragraph 28).
36. Under the first sentence of Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive, a plan or project likely to have a significant effect on the site concerned cannot be authorised without a prior assessment of its implications for the site (Case C-127/02 Waddenvereniging and Vogelbeschermingsvereniging  [2004] ECR I-7405, paragraph 22).
38. It should be recalled that the Court, after noting that the Habitats Directive does not define the terms ‘plan’ and ‘project’, has stated that the definition of ‘project’ in the second indent of Article 1(2) of Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (OJ 1985 L 175, p. 40) is relevant to defining the concept of ‘plan’ or ‘project’ as provided for in the Habitats Directive ( Waddenvereniging and Vogelbeschermingsvereniging , paragraphs 23, 24 and 26).
41. Next, the fact that that activity has been definitively authorised under national law before the expiry of the time-limit for transposition of the Habitats Directive does not constitute, in itself, an obstacle to regarding it, at the time of each intervention in the navigable channel, as a distinct project for the purposes of the Habitats Directive.
42. If it were otherwise, those dredging works in respect of the channel concerned, which are not directly connected with or necessary to the management of the site, would, in so far as they are likely to have a significant effect on the latter, automatically be excluded from any prior assessment of their implications for that site within the meaning of Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive, and from the procedure provided for in Article 6(4).
45. With regard to the principle of legal certainty, this requires in particular that rules involving negative consequences for individuals should be clear and precise and their application predictable for those subject to them (Case C-17/03 VEMW and Others  [2005] ECR I-4983, paragraph 80). The Habitats Directive fulfils those requirements with regard to the situation in the main proceedings.
46. With regard to the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, it follows from settled case-law that a new rule applies immediately to the future effects of a situation which arose under the old rule and that the scope of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations cannot be extended to the point of generally preventing new rules from applying to the future effects of situations which arose under the earlier rules (see, inter alia, Case C-162/00 Pokrzeptowicz-Meyer  [2002] ECR I-1049, paragraphs 50 and 55).
47. Finally, if, having regard in particular to the regularity or nature of the maintenance works at issue in the main proceedings or the conditions under which they are carried out, they can be regarded as constituting a single operation, in particular where they are designed to maintain the navigable channel at a certain depth by means of regular dredging necessary for that purpose, those maintenance works can be considered to be one and the same project for the purposes of Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive.
48. In that case, as such a project has been authorised before the expiry of the time-limit for transposing the Habitats Directive, it would not be subject to the requirements relating to the procedure for prior assessment of the implications of the project for the site concerned, set out in that directive (see, to that effect, Case C-209/04 Commission  v Austria  [2006] ECR I-2755, paragraphs 53 to 62).
49. Nevertheless, if the site concerned were, pursuant to the third subparagraph of Article 4(2) of the Habitats Directive, included in the list adopted by the Commission of sites chosen as SCIs, the implementation of such a project would be covered by Article 6(2) of that directive, a provision which makes it possible to satisfy the fundamental objective of preservation and protection of the quality of the environment, including the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, and establishes a general obligation of protection consisting in avoiding deterioration and disturbance which could have significant effects in the light of the directive’s objectives (see Waddenvereniging and Vogelbeschermingsvereniging , paragraphs 37 and 38, and Case C-117/03 Dragaggi and Others  [2005] ECR I-167, paragraph 25). Before the Commission adopts that list, in so far as such a site is already included in a national list transmitted to the Commission for the purpose of being included in the Community list, it must not, by virtue of Article 4(1) of the Habitats Directive, be subject to interventions which risk seriously compromising its ecological characteristics (Case C-244/05 Bund Naturschutz in Bayern and Others  [2006] ECR I-8445, paragraphs 44 and 47).