Strasbourg, 13/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament is strengthening the rules on conducting environmental impact assessments but has decided not to include shale gas projects in the activities assessed, except when their exploitation can have an impact on water quality.
On Wednesday 12 March, MEPs validated - by 528 votes in favour, 135 against and 15 abstentions - an informal agreement with the Council for updating and strengthening the Community directive on environmental impact assessments. The most recent update of this directive, which covers almost 200 projects from infrastructure construction (bridges, ports and motorways) to waste management and intensive chicken and pig farming, aims to make environmental impact assessments clearer and linked to biodiversity and climate change, with participation from the public. The key objective is also to guarantee that decisions involving development project authorisation are not influenced by conflicts of interest. The Council is expected to give its definitive validation to this update on 14 April.
“Despite strong resistance from several member states, the Parliament has achieved its aim of raising quality standards to protect human health and the environment better. Governments will have to take these standards into account in order to make informed decisions”, explained MEP Andrea Zanoni (ALDE, Italy), who is the rapporteur at the Parliament.
Under the terms of the revised directive, member states will have to operate “functional separation” between the competent authority and the project developer. Assessment reports will also have to provide new information, e.g. on the accumulation of projects, to prevent developers from splitting big projects into smaller ones so as to stay below thresholds, and on hydro-morphological changes.
By contrast, environmental impact assessments for the extraction and exploration of shale gas, regardless of the expected yield, were not included in the legislation. However, those promoting gas projects will have to assess beforehand the risks to water quality that are linked to the exploration and extraction of shale gas by the controverial hydraulic fracking technique.
The Parliament decided not to include shale gas, as a concession to member state supporters of this nonconventional gas, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Poland and Romania. The absence of any obligation in this revised directive, however, will not prevent countries that want to, from imposing national level environmental impact assessments. Hydraulic fracking is banned in France and Bulgaria, as well as in areas rich in groundwater in Germany. (EH)