In a judgment delivered on Thursday 7 November, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that when a targeted public is unable to participate under acceptable conditions in an assessment of the environmental impact of a project, it cannot be subject to a time limit for an appeal of an authorisation decision, even if it is published on an official website.
The case (C-280/18) concerns a tourist complex on the island of Ios, in the Greek Cyclades archipelago. The competent Greek authorities initiated an environmental impact assessment procedure on the project in which all interested parties were invited to participate. The Greek authorities published the consultation in the local newspaper of the island of Syros and in the offices of the administration of the South Aegean region of the same island. Problem: Syros Island is 55 nautical miles from Ios Island (about 100 km). Another problem is that there is no daily connection between the two islands.
One year later, the Ministry for the Environment and Energy and the Ministry for Tourism adopted the decision approving the environmental conditions, by which the project for the creation of the resort on the island of Ios was approved. This decision was published on the government portal Diavgeia and on the website of the Ministry for the Environment.
Some 18 months later, several property owners on the island of Ios and three environmental protection associations appealed the decision, claiming that they were not aware of the decision until works to develop the site began. Greek legislation provides for a period of 60 days from the publication of the authorisation to lodge an appeal.
When the proceedings were brought to the Council of State, Greece, it referred two questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling on whether the national provisions comply with the Directive on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (EIA Directive) and whether the publication of a decision on the Internet was sufficient to make a time limit for lodging an appeal.
The Court's reply is unambiguous: the conditions for consultation do not respect the principle of effectiveness. It considers that posting in the premises of the regional administrative headquarters, located 55 nautical miles from the place concerned by a project, which is also poorly connected, does not make it possible to "contribute sufficiently to informing the public concerned". Therefore, it considers that imposing a time limit for filing an appeal starting from the time of the publication on an Internet site, when citizens have not had proper access to the authorisation procedure, is contrary to the EIA Directive. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)