Brussels files lawsuit against Portugal for failing to transpose directive on environmental impact – Ecologia
According to information made available by the Commission, Brussels brought the action because Portugal did not transpose the European directive of April 2014, which “reduces administrative burdens and improves the level of protection of the environment, while making the decisions of companies on more solid, predictable and reserved public and private investments”.
The country “did not correctly reflect certain provisions of the amended directive in national law”, maintains the European Commission, which notified the Portuguese State in October 2019 to comply with the directive. Two years later, Brussels envied an opinion in which it again warned Portugal of non-compliance with the directive.
“The Commission considers that the efforts of the Portuguese authorities have so far been unsatisfactory and insufficient and has decided to bring an action against Portugal at the Court of Justice of the European Union”, adds the statement.
In addition, Portugal “does not fully take into account the defined criteria” when determining the viability of several projects.
The directive maintains that “major construction and development projects” in the European Union must be assessed “as to their impact on the environment”. The evaluation is mandatory “before starting the project”.
In this way, the environmental impact assessment procedure “guarantees the protection of the environment and the transparency of the decision-making process of different types of public and private projects”, and also ensures the “active participation of the public”.
Member States had three years to translate this guideline into national law and Portugal failed to do so.