Eleven years after a first judgement condemning it (C-215/06) (see EUROPE 9698/22), Ireland was condemned a second time by the Court of Justice of the European Union, on Tuesday 12 November, for failure to comply with Directive 85/337 on the environmental impact assessment of the Derrybrien wind farm (Case C-261/18).
Dublin will have to pay a lump sum fine of €5 million and a daily penalty of €15,000 from the delivery of the judgement until the date of execution of the July 2008 judgement.
According to the Court, the Irish authorities should have carried out a regularisation assessment of the wind farm, the construction of which had been authorised without an environmental impact assessment having been carried out. This regularisation assessment was to analyse both the future environmental impacts and those that have occurred since the wind farm was built in a peatland area.
The EU judge also is of the opinion that Ireland could not rely on legal certainty or legitimate expectations of the wind farm operator to avoid its obligations. In addition, projects whose authorisation is no longer subject to litigation cannot be considered legally authorised in view of the obligation to assess their environmental impact.
See the judgement: http://bit.ly/2Kinuyd (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)