EU Nature Protection Legislation – Focus on Species Protection

The initial text of the CITES Convention only foresaw membership of states, which meant that the EU, as a regional organisation, could not become a Party to the Convention and was only an Observer. This changed with the entry into force of an amendment to the Convention allowing Regional Economic Integration Organisations (REIO), such as the European Union, to become Contracting Parties to the Convention (“the Gaborone amendment”) in November 2013.

The CITES Convention is applied unilaterally by the EU, initially through Regulation 362/82 and now by Regulation 338/97 on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora by regulating trade therein. Regulation (EC) No 338/97 is directly applicable in all EU Member States and, together with Regulation (EC) 865/2006 (as amended), forms the legal basis for the implementation of CITES in the EU. These legal texts regulate international as well as EU internal wildlife trade and contain additional provisions to CITES.
The Court of Justice of the European Union has consistently held that the CITES Regulation is to be interpreted in the light of the CITES Convention. The regulation sets out four different protection regimes Annex A corresponds to Appendix I of CITES; Annex B to Appendix II; Annex C to Appendix III, while Annex D contains species which are not listed in one of the CITES Appendices. In this respect, the regulation actually has a wider scope than CITES.

In particular:
Annex A includes:

• All CITES Appendix I species, except where EU Member States have entered a reservation
• Some CITES Appendix II and III species, for which the EU has adopted stricter domestic measures
• Some non-CITES species

• All other CITES Appendix II species, except where EU Member States have entered a reservation
• Some CITES Appendix III species
• Some non-CITES species

• All other CITES Appendix III species, except where EU Member States have entered a reservation

• Some CITES Appendix III species for which the EU holds a reservation
• Some non-CITES species in order to be consistent with other EU regulations on the protection of native species, such as the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive