Important legal notice

62001C0348

European Court reports 2002 Page I-10249

Opinion of the Advocate-General

By an action brought on 10 September 2001 the European Commission has requested the Court, pursuant to Article 226 EC, to declare that, by failing to adopt all laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Council Directive 97/11/EC of 3 March 1997 amending Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (1) (`the Directive'), or in any event by failing to inform the Commission fully of those provisions, the French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive.

In these proceedings the Commission complains in particular that France:

(i) failed to transpose Article 1(7) and (11) of the Directive for all public or private works projects other than those relating to installations classified as being for the protection of the environment;

(ii) failed to transpose fully Annex II to the Directive in so far as projects for the use of uncultivated land or semi-natural areas for intensive agricultural purposes, initial afforestation and wind farms are not covered by the rules governing environmental impact studies.

In its defence the French Government acknowledged its failure to fulfil its obligations as regards the first complaint, but denied the second complaint. In its reply the Commission took account of the fact that Annex II to the Directive had in fact been transposed into the national legal order and therefore withdrew the second complaint.

Following the Commission's withdrawal of the second complaint, the present case concerns solely the failure to transpose Article 1(7) and 11 of the Directive. Since the failure to fulfil obligations criticised by the Commission is not disputed in that regard, I therefore consider that the action must succeed.

However I consider that, in the light of Article 69(2), (3) and (5) of the Rules of Procedure, the French Government's application for costs should be allowed, given that the Commission withdrew one of its two original complaints without giving specific reasons why the conduct of the defendant government might be blamed for that withdrawal.

Conclusion

I therefore propose that the Court should make a declaration as follows:

(1) By failing to adopt all laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply fully with Article 1(7) and (11) of Council Directive 97/11/EC of 3 March 1997 amending Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, or in any event by failing to inform the Commission fully of those provisions, the French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive.

(2) The parties to bear their own costs.

(1) - OJ 1997 L 73, p. 5.