Although the Belgian law extending the activities of the Doel 1 and Doel 2 nuclear power plants by 10 years was adopted without a prior environmental impact assessment – an assessment required by EU legislation – it is not excluded that its effects may be maintained temporarily and exceptionally, if the continuation is justified by the imperative need to remove a real and serious threat of disruption of electricity supply, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in a judgment delivered on Monday 29 July (Case C-411/17).
This maintenance can only cover the time strictly necessary to remedy this illegality, the Court of Justice points out. In so doing, it confirms the conclusions of the Advocate General (see EUROPE 12149/27).
The NGOs Inter-Environnement Wallonie and Bond Beter Leefmilieu Vlaanderen had brought an action before the Belgian Constitutional Court for annulment of the extension law, because it was carried out without a prior environmental assessment or a procedure involving the public in the decision-making process, in breach of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions and the Directives on the assessment of the impact of certain public and private projects on the environment (EIA) (Directive 2011/92/UE), ‘Habitats’ (92/43/EEC) and ‘Birds’ (2009/147/EC). Doel borders several sites of the pan-European network of protected natural areas, Natura 2000.
The Court also points out that EU law does not preclude environmental impact assessments from being carried out as regularisation while the project is in progress or even after its completion, but under two conditions: – that the national rules allowing such regularisation do not give the persons concerned the opportunity to circumvent or dispense with the application of EU law; – that the assessments thus carried out do not only cover the future environmental impacts of the project, but also take into account all the environmental impacts that have occurred since the project was carried out. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)