Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive
Application of the EIA Directive
- Discretion of Member States (screening)
For projects listed in Annex II, the national authorities have to decide whether an EIA is needed. This is done by the "screening procedure", which determines the effects of projects on the basis of threshold/criteria or a case-by-case examination (Article 4 (2) EIA Directive). The Member State has a large amount of discretion in deciding whether an effect does have such a significant environmental impact or not. However, the national authorities must take into account the criteria laid down in Annex III, i.e. the size of the project, its location and its potential impact on the environment. Moreover, the CJEU has narrowed this wide discretion by ruling that every project likely to have a significant environmental impact should be subject to an environmental impact assessment (cf. C-435/97; C-72/95; C-431/92; C-131/94; C-301/95; C-392/96).
The projects listed in Annex II are in general those not included in Annex I (railways, roads, waste disposal installations, waste water treatment plants), but also other types such as urban development projects, flood-relief works, changes of Annex I and II existing projects).
Further reading:
Regarding the projects in Annex I and II of the EIA Directive see also guidance document of the Commission “Interpretation of definitions of certain project categories of annex I and II of the EIA Directive”.
The objectives of this guidance document are:
- to improve understanding of what can be reasonably considered to be covered by certain project categories that have proved particularly difficult to interpret in practice.
- to provide an overview of existing useful sources of information at EU level, including rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), definitions provided in other directives and relevant guidance documents.