General Principles
Direct effect
The principle of direct effect enables individuals to immediately invoke an EU law provision before the national court independent of whether national law test exists. Where the national judge is unable to interpret national law in compliance with the requirements of EU law, it has to consider whether direct applicability of EU law is possible. This way, the direct effect principle ensures the application and effectiveness of EU law in case the Member States hesitate to implement it correctly. And as a consequence, it helps to protect the rights of individuals.
The primary EU legislation has direct effect if the particular obligation is precise, clear and unconditional and does not call for additional measures. The EU regulations always have direct effect (see Art. 288 TFEU). A directive has direct effect when its provisions are unconditional and sufficiently clear and precise and when the Member State has not transposed the directive by the deadline. However, it can only have direct vertical effect (directives may not be cited by the Member State against an individual. Decisions may have direct effect when they refer to a Member State as the addressee (only a direct vertical effect).
The CJEU approaches the concept of direct effect in the field of environmental protection in order to ensure not only the protection of the individuals concerned but also to enable the effective enforcement of EU law. The environmental directives rarely expressly grant rights to individuals but if they fix limit values for the protection of human health, then – according to the CJEU - they also confer on the persons concerned a legally enforceable right to compliance with those limit values (Case C-59/89 Commission v Germany). It would be incompatible with the binding effect attributed to a directive to exclude, in principle, the possibility that the obligations which it imposes may be relied on by those concerned (Case C-243/15 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK, para. 44).
Therefore, the individuals concerned, including the environmental NGOs, are able to rely on the EU directives in the decision-making procedures, where the directives require, or before the national courts. They qualify as participants or plaintiffs irrespective of completely absent or overly restrictive national rules on locus standi.