Brussels, 10/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Court, on Thursday 9 June, followed the recommendations of Advocate Juliane Kott (see EUROPE 10299) in ruling against France in case C-383/09. By 5 August 2008, France had failed to take adequate measures to ensure strict protection of the European Hamster (Cricetus cricetus) in Alsace, the only region where this species “of Community interest”, which is under threat of extinction, is to be found. In particular, measures adopted did not enable effective avoidance of deterioration or destruction of breeding sites and resting places.
In its action, lodged in 2009, the Commission pointed to the dramatic decline, from 1,160 to fewer than 180, in European hamster numbers between 2001 and 2007, when the minimum viable population threshold for the species is 1,500 individuals spread over an area of unbroken suitable land of 600 hectares. The Commission criticised certain agricultural practices and the development of urbanisation.
The Court considered the steps taken by France to amend agricultural practices so as to promote repopulation in a recovery area. It noted the inadequacy of the far-from-binding or vague nature of the administrative measures to restrict urbanisation in repopulation areas.
The Court, however, rejected the Commission's complaint regarding the alleged inadequacy of the French action programme for 2008 to 2010 on limiting pollution by nitrates, on the ground that the Commission has not demonstrated “to the requisite legal standard” that there is a link between the use of nitrates in agriculture and the deterioration or destruction of the breeding sites or resting places of the European Hamster. (F.G./transl.rt)