EIA, SEA and energy projects: better decision-making or a game of snakes and ladders?

摘要

The EIA and SEA Directives are of central importance to the European system of environmental protection. Although they are only of a procedural nature, the identification of environmental effects under the directives is a powerful means of ensuring that environmental issues are appropriately addressed. However, if the legislation is to work effectively in practice, its scope and operation must be clear Following Walton the fundamental issue of discretion in EU challenges is uncertain. Even more fundamentally, the bounds of the purposive principle are unclear as a result of the divergent approaches of the CJEU (in Inter-Environnement Bruxelles) and the Supreme Court (in Buckinghamshire). This uncertainty is not conducive to the effective operation of SEA (or indeed EIA) in practice.