Environmental Impact Assessment in Europe : Legal Basis and Recent Developments

유럽에서의 환경영향평가

The European Community (EC) began dealing with the subject of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the mid-1970s. After ten years of preparatory work and more than 20 draft versions, the EC Council of Ministers adopted, in 1985, the Directive on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (85/337/EEC). This directive requires the member states to make EIA mandatory for certain projects. Its Article 3 defines the purpose of the instrument: "The environmental impact assessment will identify, describe and assess the direct and indirect effects of a project. There are no rules on scoping or on post-project analysis. However, member states are free to adopt, in their domestic legislation, more stringent rules regarding the scope and procedure of EIA. Consequently, they have developed national EIA systems which differ considerably from each other. Also, EIA practice in each of these countries is different from that in the others. In 1992, the EC Council adopted the 'Flora, Fauna, Habitat' Directive which lays down an additional EIA requirement. Member states will have to develop a network of 'European' nature conservation areas. Each project or plan possibly endangering these areas will have to be assessed whether it is in line with the protection purposes laid down for them. Although the directive does not say so explicitly, this means that a kind of EIA will have to be carried out for those projects and plans. For several years, the Commission has been developing proposals for a directive on EIA of plans and programmes ("strategic EIA"). This would supplement directive 85/337/EED, and would require and EIA for plans and programmes influencing decisions on specific projects(e.g. agricultural plans or energy programmes). At present, procedural and methodological questions of strategic EIA are being discussed extensively both within and without the European Union.