3.2. Assessment of the European Union Directive on
Environmental Impact Assessment
3.2.1. Presentation of the Environmental Impact
Assessment Procedure in EU
The current environmental impact assessment procedure in the
EU is governed by the Directive 2014/52/EU of the European Parliament and the
Council of April 16th, 2014 on the assessment of the effects of certain public
and private projects on the environment adopted from the amendment of the
Directive 2011/92/EU. It entered into force on May 15th, 2014. Member States
(MS) had to transpose it into their national legislation as from May 16th, 2017
at the latest and communicate to the European Commission the national
legislation adopted in order to comply with the directive.
According to Article 3 of the Directive, the EIA shall
identify, describe and assess the significant effects of a project on the
biophysical and social factors of the environment and the interaction between
them. Moreover, the effects of the project on the factors shall include the
expected effects like the vulnerability of the project to risks of major
accidents and/or disasters that are relevant to the project.
Two types of projects are under the scope of the Directive:
projects of Annex I having significant effects on the environment that should
be subject to a systematic assessment and projects of Annex II that do not
necessarily have significant effects on the environment in every case. For the
latter, the MS shall determine whether the project shall be made subject to an
assessment through a case-by-case examination or thresholds or criteria set by
them.
3.2.2. EU Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure
From the Directive, the important phases identified are:
screening, scoping, realisation of the EIA, assessment and evaluation of the
EIA procedure, granting or refuse of the development consent and the
determination of monitoring conditions. Because of its cross-cutting character,
public consultation is treated differently from the above mentioned phases.
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3.2.2.1. Screening
The screening is the first phase that starts when the
developer notifies or informs the Competent Authority (CA) about his project
proposal for a request for development consent. If the project is listed among
those of Annex I for which an EIA is required, there is no need for screening.
For those listed in Annex II, the developer shall provide detailed information
on the characteristics of the project and its likely significant effects on the
environment. Based on the information provided by the developer, the CA shall
make its determination whether the project requires an EIA or not and states
the main reasons for requiring or not such assessment with reference to the
relevant criteria listed in Annex III of the directive( Article 4 (5)). The CA
shall make its determination within 90 days from the date of submission of all
the information required by the developer. In exceptional cases (nature,
complexity, size, location of the project), the CA may extend that deadline and
shall inform the developer in writing of the reasons justifying the extension
and of the date when its determination is expected (Article (4(6)).
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