EU Water Law

Member States established action programmes on vulnerable zones which they must adopt within one year of the designation of every new vulnerable zone (Article 5(1)) and in any event revise every four years (Article 5(7)).

The CJEU’s analysis of such action programmes concludes that they may lead to mandatory environmental assessments (joined cases C-105/09 and C-110/09 Terre Wallonne v Region Walonne).

• First, the CJEU ruled that such an action programme in principle characterises as a plan or programme subject to an environmental impact assessment under general EU environmental legislation (Article 3(2)(a) of Directive 2001/42/EC).
• Second, the CJEU added, such an action programme “contains measures compliance with which is a requirement for issue of the consent that may be granted for carrying out projects” which are themselves subject to an environmental impact assessment under general EU environmental legislation (Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, as repealed and replaced by Directive 2011/92/EU).

An action programme may relate to all vulnerable zones in the territory of a Member State or, where the Member State considers it appropriate, different programmes may be established for different vulnerable zones or parts of zones (Article 5(2)). However, a series of measures, varying in scale and applicability from region to region and not constituting an organised and coherent system intended to meet a specific objective does not qualify as an ‘action programme’ within the meaning of that provision (case C-396/01 Commission v Ireland, para. 44).