Ongoing Activities and Natura 2000

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Schoukens
Keyword(s):  
Conservation Status ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Member States ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Legitimate Interests ◽  
Natura 2000 Site

The recent figures on the conservation status of EU protected habitats and species underscore the obvious need for a more stringent application of the protection rules included in Article 6 of the Habitats Directive on ongoing activities, such as dredging, recreation and forestry, with adverse effects on Natura 2000-sites. However, all too often the Member States refrain from scrutinizing harmful forms of existing use in already heavily degraded Natura 2000-sites. The economic concerns tied to the continuation of existing use often prevail over restoration considerations. This paper showcases that, despite submissions to the contrary, legitimate interests and legal certainty cannot, as such, preclude the application of the protection rules contained in Article 6 of the Habitats Directive in relation to ongoing activities. Whilst granting the Member States some leeway as to the application of the ex ante assessment rules to ongoing activities, the Court of Justice puts forward the protection duty enshrined in Article 6(2) of the Habitats Directive as bottom-line in relation to all possible ongoing activities which could lead to deterioration and/or significant disturbance of a Natura 2000-site. However, the recent case-law illustrates that many Member States are struggling with the effective implementation of the latter obligation.

Marine Natura 2000 and Fishery – The Case of Sweden

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Christiernsson ◽  
Gabriel Michanek ◽  
Pontus Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Exclusive Economic Zone ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
Member States ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
Fisheries Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Economic Zone

Fishing operations likely to have a significant effect on a marine Natura 2000 area shall be subject to prior assessment and authorisation according to Article 6.3 of the Habitats Directive. This provision, partly also article 6.2, and in particular the cjeu case law, implies that this prior control should be applied rather often in practice, even for recurrent fishery irrespective of when the first fishing operation occurred in an area. Article 11 of the Common Fisheries Policy Regulation entails that Sweden and other Member States apply Article 6 of the Habitats Directive within the entire exclusive economic zone, to both own and foreign fishing vessels. A Member State is also, under certain preconditions, empowered to impose restrictions on fishery not supported by article 6 of the Habitats Directive, especially within the 12 nautical miles zone. A Member State is not formally hindered from excluding fishery from prior assessment and authorisation if instead general requirements on fishery in legislation can ensure that no future fishing operation is likely to have a significant effect on the Natura 2000 area. However, cjeu case law indicates that it would be difficult to fulfil that precondition.

scholarly journals The Role of the Court of Justice in Creating Standards for the Implementation of Cultural Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-56
Author(s):  
Anna Kosińska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Court Of Justice

The present study seeks to answer the question whether the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in cases concerning the exercise of broadly understood cultural policies may in reality affect the extent of implementation of cultural rights—that is, access to products of culture, participation in cultural life and freedom of artistic creativity—at the level of Member States. Cultural rights are traditionally regulated by the constitutions of EU Member States and are classified by legal scholars and commentators as second generation rights. Culture, in turn, according to primary legislation of the European Union, is only a supporting competence (Article 6 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union). However, a review of the Court’s case law demonstrates that CJEU’s judgments form standards that contribute to a more effective implementation of cultural rights guaranteed in the national law of the Member States and international agreements to which they are parties. This results from the nature of the Union’s law, which penetrates a national system and thanks to the principle of direct effect and supremacy truly affects the situation of EU citizens.

Natura 2000: deterioro, desclasificación de lugares de importancia comunitaria y derecho de propiedad

2014 ◽  
pp. 1543-1561
Author(s):  
Agustín GARCÍA URETA
Keyword(s):  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Locus Standi ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court

LABURPENA: Lan honek, Europar Batasuneko habitatei buruzko Zuzentarauaren eta Justizia Auzitegiaren gaiari buruzko doktrinaren pean, garrantzi erkideko lekuei ken dakiekeen sailkapena aztertzen du. Iruzkinak Auzitegiak onartutako fokatzeari kritikak egiten dizkio, bereziki, Cascina uzian, balizkotasun hura onartzen baitu, Zuzentarauaren hitzez hitzekoak kontserbazio bereziko guneak bakarrik aipatu arren. Agerian jartzen dira baita ere beste alderdi batzuekiko Auzitegiaren jarrerak dakarren sendotasunik eza, besteak beste, kontserbazio bereziko gune izendatu aurretik garrantzi erkideko lekuen babesarekiko eta garrantzi erkideko lekuen behin betiko zerrenda onartzen duen Batzordearen erabakia aurkaratzeko legitimazioarekiko. Azkenik, garrantzi erkideko leku bati sailkapena kentzen zaionean jabetza-eskubideak duen papera ere aztertzen da. RESUMEN: Este trabajo examina la posible desclasificación de los lugares de importancia comunitaria (LIC) bajo la Directiva de hábitats de la Unión Europea y la doctrina del Tribunal de Justicia a este respecto. El comentario plantea una serie de críticas al enfoque adoptado por el Tribunal, en particular en el asunto Cascina, en el que se acepta tal eventualidad a pesar del tenor literal de la Directiva, que solo se refiere a las zonas de especial conservación (ZEC). También se ponen en evidencia las inconsistencias que plantea la postura del Tribunal con otros aspectos, tales como la protección de los LIC antes de designarse como ZEC y la legitimación para recurrir la decisión de la Comisión que aprueba la lista definitiva de LIC. Finalmente, se examina el papel del derecho de propiedad en el caso de la desclasificación de un LIC. ABSTRACT: This contribution examines the declassification of sites of community importance (SCIs) under the European Union Habitats Directive and the case law of the European Court of Justice. The comment criticizes the approach adopted by the Court, in particular in the Cascina case, which admits that possibility despite the Directive’s express wording that only refers to special conservation areas (SCAs). The comment also highlights other inconsistencies derived from the case law such as the provisional protection of SCIs before being designated as SCAs and the locus standi to challenge the Commission’s decision adopting the definitive list of SCIs so far rejected by the Court. The comment also examines the role of private ownership in the declassification procedure.

scholarly journals The conservation objectives of the Natura 2000 area in the light of law and case law

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Adam Habuda
Keyword(s):  
Nature Conservation ◽  
European Commission ◽  
National Level ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
European Network ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Proper Management ◽  
Court Of Justice

The article discusses the issue of conservation objectives of the Natura 2000 area. The basis for their analysis is the Habitats Directive and the Polish Act on Nature Conservation together with plans of conservation tasks. It is a key legal instrument for the proper management of the Natura 2000 area and the European network of Natura 2000 sites. Its importance is recognized in the legal interpretations made by the Court of Justice and non-binding documents of the European Commission. However, the question should be asked whether such an important, and indeed fundamental for Natura 2000, institution should not be clearer and more precisely regulated by the European legislator. Lack of unambiguous norms of the directive may cause discrepancies in defining the objectives of Natura 2000 protection both at the level of various EU Member States and at the national level – in relation to individual Natura 2000 areas in a given country.

Habitats Directive and Environmental Assessment of Plans and Projects

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustin Garcia Ureta
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Court Of Justice ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
Special Protection

AbstractThe article analyses the mechanism for the assessment of the effects of plans and projects on special protection and conservation areas, as required by the Habitats Directive. It examines the case-law of the European Court of Justice concerning the criteria that require the carrying out of the assessment. It also examines the generous and in certain cases open-ended exceptions that may be invoked by the Member States in order to execute a plan or project despite its negative effects on the areas concerned, and the different opinions delivered by the European Commission when considering whether those exceptions have been correctly adopted by the Member States in the case of sites containing priority habitats or species.

The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on ‘judicial authority’ and issuing European arrest warrants

2021 ◽  
pp. 203228442110276
Author(s):  
Tricia Harkin
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Public Prosecutor ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Advocate General ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Judicial Authority ◽  
Criminal Matters ◽  
Judicial Protection

The case law of the Court of Justice from 2016 to 2019 on the interpretation of ‘judicial authority’ in Article 6(1) FD-EAW essentially examines whether a public prosecutor can be an issuing judicial authority and if so, how Member States’ systems for issuing EAWs ensure effective judicial protection for the person concerned. For the Advocate General, applying the Court’s ‘rule of law’ jurisprudence, effective judicial protection when deprivation of liberty is involved can only be assured by a body with the highest level of judicial independence, being a court. The Court’s broader approach of including public prosecutors with sufficiency of independence from the executive and requiring their decisions to be amenable to review by a court, when applied in practice arguably falls short of the requisite standard of effective judicial protection. There is also a lack of clarity about access to the interpretative jurisdiction of the Court by public prosecutors acting as judicial authorities. Effective judicial protection and EU cooperation in criminal matters would now be better served by the designation in all Member States of a court as the issuing judicial authority for the FD-EAW. This is against the background of the uniquely coercive nature of the EAW in terms of deprivation of liberty; the differences in Member States’ institutional arrangements for public prosecutors and the post-Lisbon effective constitutionalisation of judicial protection of rights of individuals.

scholarly journals Occurrence of the Green Shield-Moss Buxbaumia viridis (Moug.) Brid. in the Bieszczady Mountains of Poland

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 374
Author(s):  
Piotr Brewczyński ◽  
Kamil Grałek ◽  
Piotr Bilański
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Managed Forests ◽  
Moss Species ◽  
Microhabitat Preferences ◽  
Natura 2000 Site ◽  
Forest District

The small-sized gametophytes and sporophytes of the green shield-moss Buxbaumia viridis (Moug.) Brid. make it difficult to study. However, in Europe, there has been increasing interest in this species in the past few years, mostly as a result of the implementation of the Natura 2000 network. In Poland, B. viridis has only been reported in isolated studies that have been limited in terms of area and the number of participating workers. One of the Polish regions where B. viridis was recently recorded is the Bieszczady Mountains, but there have been no large-scale surveys of that region to date. The objective of the current work was to describe the B. viridis population in the Bieszczady Mountains in terms of its spatial distribution and abundance, investigate its selected microhabitat preferences, and evaluate the conservation status of this moss species within the Natura 2000 site Bieszczady PLC180001. The studied region encompassed 93,490.44 ha, including 69,056.23 ha of managed forests and 24,434.21 ha of forests belonging to the Bieszczady National Park. A preliminary survey was conducted in the Cisna Forest District (forest area of 19,555.82 ha) on 15–17 November 2017, while the main survey was performed in selected forest subcompartments of four forest districts—Baligród, Komańcza, Lutowiska, and Stuposiany—as well as the Bieszczady National Park from 5 to 16 November 2018. The field work consisted of searching for B. viridis sporophytes and setae and recording selected population and locality characteristics. The study led to the discovery of 353 new B. viridis localities in 202 study areas, with 9197 diploid individuals (sporophytes or setae only) growing in 545 microhabitats. The number of B. viridis localities discovered in the Bieszczady Mountains during 17 days of survey in 2017 and 2018 was two times higher than the combined number of localities previously found in Poland over more than 150 years (159 localities). Additionally, the number of sporophytes and setae identified was two times greater than their overall number in previous records. In addition, this study provides information about selected microhabitat preferences and the conservation status of this moss in the Bieszczady Natura 2000 site.

NON-DISCRIMINATORY TRADE RESTRICTIONS AFTER KECK

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Alan Dashwood
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Sales Promotion ◽  
Trade Restrictions ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Equivalent Effect ◽  
The One ◽  
Domestic Products ◽  
By Products

IN its Keck judgment—famous or notorious according to taste—the Court of Justice drew a distinction, for the purposes of the application of the prohibition in Article 28 EC against measures having equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions (“MEEQRs”), between two categories of national measures. On the one hand were “product requirements”: measures specifying requirements to be met, in order to obtain access to the market of a Member State, by products coming from other Member States where they are lawfully manufactured and marketed, like the minimum alcohol requirement for fruit liqueurs in Cassis de Dijon (Case 120/78 [1997] E.C.R. 649). Such product requirements are liable to constitute MEEQRs, and therefore require specific justification, in order to escape prohibition, on one of the public interest grounds recognised by Community law. On the other hand was the category of measures described in the judgment as “provisions restricting or prohibiting certain selling arrangements”. An example was the legislation at issue in the main proceedings in Keck, which prohibited the resale of products below their purchase price, thereby depriving retailers of a form of sales promotion. Other examples, attested by the case law post-Keck, are measures regulating advertising methods, the kind of shop in which goods of a certain description can be sold, shops’ opening hours and Sunday trading. National provisions in this latter category are not normally such as to hinder trade between Member States under the test formulated by the Court in Dassonville (Case 8/74 [1974] E.C.R. 837, at para. 5), and so do not call for justification; not, that is, “so long as those provisions apply to all relevant traders operating within the national territory and so long as they affect in the same manner, in law and in fact, the marketing of domestic products and those from other Member States”: see Joined Cases C-267 and 268/9 [1993] E.C.R. I-6097, at paras. 15–17.

scholarly journals Natura 2000 sites and fisheries in German offshore waters

2008 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Søren Anker Pedersen ◽  
Heino Fock ◽  
Jochen Krause ◽  
Christian Pusch ◽  
Anne L. Sell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Fishery Management ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Management Measures ◽  
Favourable Conservation Status ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Natura 2000 Site ◽  
Environmentally Sound ◽  
Fishing Impacts

Abstract Pedersen, S. A., Fock, H., Krause, J., Pusch, C., Sell, A. L., Böttcher, U., Rogers, S. I., Sköld, M., Skov, H., Podolska, M., Piet, G. J., and Rice, J. C. 2009. Natura 2000 sites and fisheries in German offshore waters.–ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 155–169. The principal objective of sites selected as part of Natura 2000 is to achieve or maintain a favourable conservation status of habitats and species named in the EU Birds and Habitats directives. In the German exclusive economic zone, the habitat types protected by this legislation are sandbanks and reefs; protected species include marine mammals, seabirds, and specific migratory fish species. The ICES project Environmentally Sound Fishery Management in Protected Areas (EMPAS) aims to answer two questions: (i) To what extent do specific fishing activities significantly threaten attainment of the conservation objectives of the Natura 2000 sites? (ii) What management measures would reduce these conflicts and how effective would they be at helping to ensure the favourable condition of these sites? Assessments of fishing impacts on Natura 2000 sites require basic data on the conservation status of individual habitats and species, as well as data for fine-scale distributions of ongoing fishing activities. This paper describes and discusses the process used by the EMPAS project in developing fishery-management plans for each Natura 2000 site in German offshore waters.

Financing Social Security and Regulation (EEC) 1408/71

2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Herwig Verschueren
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Social Security Benefits

This article seeks to provide a clearer picture of the role of methods for funding social security benefits in EC Coordination Regulation 1408/71. In past literature and in the case law surrounding Regulation 1408/71, this role has seldom been mentioned. However, this is changing in light of increasing numbers of questions emerging at both the policy-making level and at the level of Court of Justice proceedings. The first part of this paper deals with the role of different methods of financing social security in determining the material scope of the coordination regulation and the question of whether the method of financing certain benefits has a bearing on this material scope. The second part deals with the existing link within the coordination context between paying or having paid contributions and entitlement to benefits. I discuss, inter alia, the extent to which benefit levels are determined by the same legislation as that which determines contribution levels. I examine the extent to which Member States collecting contributions are also responsible for bearing the cost of the corresponding benefits and the extent to which a person who is paying or has paid contributions is entitled to benefits corresponding to those contributions. In light of this examination of the facts as they stand, I endeavour to consider possible alternatives, including the desirability of having a more direct link within the coordination context between payment of contributions and entitlement to benefits.

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