Transport is something we all need but at the same time, we have to make sure that people, the environment and nature do not suffer because of it. Working out the effect a project will have on the environment is a key factor in determining whether that project should go ahead.

J&E member organisations analysing national legislation and individual transport projects in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia and Austria found numerous gaps in the countries’ transposition and implementation of the EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive.

“Many of these cases show that the competent authorities are unaware of, or are ignoring, the requirements of the directive and other relevant EC legislation,� J&E EIA case study coordinator Pavel Černý states in a position paper summarising the findings.

These failures raise the risk to the environment and to human health posed by new highways and other major transport projects through lost green space, threats to protected areas, increased air pollution and other consequences of construction and greater automobile use.

Given the importance and, often, political sensitivity of such projects, J&E has made the relationship between the EIA process and transport-related infrastructure a major focus of its work since 2006, supported by the European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General. J&E found that, in contravention to the intent of the directive, some or all of the investigated Member States:

1. provide little or no opportunity for the public and NGOs to challenge decisions on whether a project warrants an environmental-impact assessment.

2. neglect EIA Directive criteria for determining whether an assessment is needed.

3. take a “special approach� to transport projects that lends itself to less-rigorous environmental control.

4. fail to assess all potential environmental impacts of a project or consider alternative, less-damaging development options in granting project consent.

5. fail to guarantee timely and effective public participation in the decision-making process.

In 2008 J&E continues to monitor large transport infrastructure cases and their clashes with the EU environmental directives in J&E member states. There are also further transport topics of great concern to the environment – trans–European transport networks (TEN-Ts) development and the possibility for the new EU MSs to draw large amount of money from EU funds via Operational Programmes Transport (EU Regional Policy instrument).

Several controversial and environmentally harmful projects appeared on “the list” of potential beneficiaries. The deficiencies in the SEA, EIA and other environmental directives implementation highlighted by J&E so far become yet more consequential as they largely affect the development of the roads and motorways of European importance (TEN-T projects) and as the large amount of money supplied to the transport sector open the way to even faster and massive transport development (of both needed as well as very harmful projects).

For these hot transport issues, J&E consults with CEE Bankwatch  and J&E members cooperate with CEE Bankwatch in the case of Brno – Vienna motorway, which represents one of the three worst transport projects in Central and Eastern Europe according to CEE Bankwatch and FoEE evaluation.

J&E offers several recommendations for closing these gaps and strengthening enforcement of the environmental directives, to better balance the need for an improved transport network with effective environmental protection and to ensure a proper public role in making these crucial and costly development decisions.

For full information download our materials:

Download

J&E EIT Case study overview 2006

The full paper is available here

J&E EIT Legal analysis 2006

J&E EIT Position paper 2006

For more information please write to secretariat@justiceandenvironment.org

Note: due to the large file size individual case studies are not combined with the overall case study overview; they will be emailed upon request.

See also CEE Bankwatch Networks’ Transport page: http://www.bankwatch.org/project.shtml?w=147584 and the Cohesion or Collision? map on http://www.bankwatch.org/billions/