Inter-Environnement Bruxelles ASBL, Pétitions-Patrimoine ASBL and Atelier de Recherche et d'Action Urbaines ASBL v Région de Bruxelles-Capitale.
Date: 2012-03-22
20. First of all, as is apparent from Article 1 of Directive 2001/42, the fundamental objective of that directive is to require, where plans and programmes are likely to have significant effects on the environment, that an environmental assessment be carried out in their regard at the time they are prepared and before they are adopted (Joined Cases C-105/09 and C-110/09 Terre wallonne and Inter-Environnement Wallonie  [2010] ECR I-5611, paragraph 32).
21. Where such an environmental assessment is required by Directive 2001/42, the directive lays down minimum rules concerning the preparation of the environmental report, the carrying out of the consultation process, the taking into account of the results of the environmental assessment and the communication of information on the decision adopted at the end of the assessment ( Terre wallonne and Inter-Environnement Wallonie , paragraph 33).
28. It must be stated that an interpretation which would result in excluding from the scope of Directive 2001/42 all plans and programmes, inter alia those concerning the development of land, whose adoption is, in the various national legal systems, regulated by rules of law, solely because their adoption is not compulsory in all circumstances, cannot be upheld.
30. Consequently, such an interpretation of Article 2(a) of Directive 2001/42, by appreciably restricting the directive’s scope, would compromise, in part, the practical effect of the directive, having regard to its objective, which consists in providing for a high level of protection of the environment (see, to this effect, Case C-295/10 Valčiukienė and Others  [2011] ECR I-0000, paragraph 42). That interpretation would thus run counter to the directive’s aim of establishing a procedure for scrutinising measures likely to have significant effects on the environment, which define the criteria and the detailed rules for the development of land and normally concern a multiplicity of projects whose implementation is subject to compliance with the rules and procedures provided for by those measures.
31. It follows that plans and programmes whose adoption is regulated by national legislative or regulatory provisions, which determine the competent authorities for adopting them and the procedure for preparing them, must be regarded as ‘required’ within the meaning, and for the application, of Directive 2001/42 and, accordingly, be subject to an assessment of their environmental effects in the circumstances which it lays down.
36. It is to be noted first of all, as the national court has, that Directive 2001/42 refers expressly not to repealing measures but only to measures modifying plans and programmes.
37. However, given the objective of Directive 2001/42, which consists in providing for a high level of protection of the environment, the provisions which delimit the directive’s scope, in particular those setting out the definitions of the measures envisaged by the directive, must be interpreted broadly.
39. Thus, a repealing measure may give rise to significant effects on the environment because, as has been observed by the Commission and by the Advocate General in points 40 and 41 of her Opinion, such a measure necessarily entails a modification of the legal reference framework and consequently alters the environmental effects which had, as the case may be, been assessed under the procedure prescribed by Directive 2001/42.
42. On the other hand, it must be made clear that, in principle, that is not the case if the repealed measure falls within a hierarchy of town and country planning measures, as long as those measures lay down sufficiently precise rules governing land use, they have themselves been the subject of an assessment of their environmental effects and it may reasonably be considered that the interests which Directive 2001/42 is designed to protect have been taken into account sufficiently within that framework.