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The European Commission is sending a final warning to Ireland
for failing to comply with a European Court of Justice ruling
asking it to amend its law on environmental impact assessments.
If the necessary steps are not taken, the Commission could
refer the case back to the Court and ask for fines to be imposed.
EU Environment
Commissioner Janez Potocnik said
- "The correct application of EU
law on environmental impact assessments is essential
to protect Europe's environment and reduce the potential for
complaints. I
urge Ireland to adopt the necessary improvements to its legislation
as quickly as possible."
The case concerns
Ireland's failure to comply with a European Court of Justice
ruling on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive.
The aim of the Directive is to ensure that projects likely
to have a significant impact on the environment are assessed
before they are authorised so that people are aware of the
possible effects.
In
November 2008, the Court ruled that Ireland's legislation
did not comply with the EIA Directive to ensure that certain
types of project - in this case marine fish farm developments
- undergo a procedure to decide whether an environmental assessment
is required before consent is granted.
Following the
ruling, Ireland referred the Commission to national
legislation, which, it considered, addressed the points raised
in the Court's judgment. However,
after examining the legislation referred to, the Commission
found that it does not fully comply with the judgment.
In particular,
it does not explicitly require
that the relevant selection criteria
specified in the EIA Directive are considered when
deciding whether certain fish farm projects should undergo
an environmental impact assessment.
The Irish authorities
indicated that they intended to
amend their legislation to comply with the judgment. However,
given that there has been no amendment to-date, the Commission
is sending Ireland a final warning. If Ireland fails to take
the necessary measures to comply, the Commission could refer
the case back to the European Court of Justice and ask for
fines to be imposed.
For current statistics on infringements
in general - Click
Here
The European Commission has also
decided to send a reasoned opinion to Ireland - together with
Austria, Finland, Greece and the United Kingdom - for failure
to adopt national legislation on the inland transport of dangerous
goods.
Directive
2008/68/EC on the inland transport of dangerous goods,
adopted in 2008, aims at guaranteeing the safe transport of
dangerous goods by road, rail and inland waterways. It is
in line with international agreements and ensures harmonised
and safe conditions for all land transport of dangerous goods
in the EU.
The Commission took the decision
to send reasoned opinions because the member states in question
have not fully transposed the directive into national law.
The directive should have been fully transposed by 30 June
2008.
In better news, following changes
to Irish legislation that remove obstacles to setting up a
business in Ireland, the European Commission has closed its
infringement case in this matter.
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