Naturschutzbund Deutschland - Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein e.V. v Kreis Nordfriesland.
Date: 2020-07-09
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In that regard, it should be pointed out that the purpose of Directive 2004/35 is to establish a framework of environmental liability based on a high degree of environmental protection and on the precautionary principle and ‘polluter-pays’ principle, with a view to preventing and remedying environmental damage caused by operators (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 July 2017, Túrkevei Tejtermelő Kft., C‑129/16, EU:C:2017:547, paragraphs 47 and 53 and the case-law cited).
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According to settled case-law of the Court, the wording used in one language version of a provision of EU law cannot serve as the sole basis for the interpretation of that provision, or be made to override the other language versions in that regard. Such an approach would be incompatible with the requirement that EU law be applied uniformly. Where there is a divergence between the various language versions, the provision in question must thus be interpreted by reference to the general scheme and the purpose of the rules of which it forms part (judgment of 9 March 2017, GE Healthcare, C‑173/15, EU:C:2017:195, paragraph 65 and the case-law cited).
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Accordingly, in so far as those provisions render the environmental liability regime in principle inapplicable in respect of certain damage that may affect protected species and natural habitats, and thus diverge from the main objective underlying Directive 2004/35, namely to establish a common framework for the prevention and remedying of environmental damage in order to combat effectively increased site contamination and greater loss of biodiversity, they must necessarily be interpreted strictly (see, by analogy, judgment of 16 May 2019, Plessers, C‑509/17, EU:C:2019:424, paragraph 38 and the case-law cited).
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It should nevertheless be borne in mind that it is necessary, in interpreting a provision of EU law, to take into account not only its wording, but also its context and the general scheme of the rules of which it forms part and the objectives pursued thereby (judgment of 30 January 2020, Tim, C‑395/18, EU:C:2020:58, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited).
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Furthermore, under the general scheme of Directive 2004/35, occupational activities covered by Article 2(7) thereof can be carried out solely by persons falling within the directive’s scope, namely operators, who are defined in Article 2(6) as any natural or legal, private or public person who operates or controls the occupational activity (see, to that effect, judgment of 4 March 2015, Fipa Group and Others, C‑534/13, EU:C:2015:140, paragraph 52). It is thus apparent from reading Article 2(6) of Directive 2004/35 together with Article 2(7) that the concept of ‘occupational activity’ has a broad meaning and also includes non-profit-making public activities carried out by public legal persons. Such activities, as a general rule, are neither market-related nor competitive in nature, so that to give the words ‘business’ and ‘undertaking’ in Article 2(7) of Directive 2004/35 a purely economic, commercial or industrial meaning would effectively exclude almost all of those activities from the concept of ‘occupational activity’.