Environment : effects of public and private projects (amend. Directive 85/337/EEC)

The rapporteur wanted a number of projects to be included in Annex I, which provided for a obligatory impact assessment, rather than Annex II, which left the decision to the Member States. He believed that the derogations should be limited to exceptional cases and that the public affected by projects should have the opportunity to object to a derogation. He also considered that Community programmes should be the subject of global impact assessments. As regards the content of the impact assessments, the rapporteur felt that the proposal was inadequate as it did not mention option 0 (which sought to reduce demand rather than supply). Mr LANNOYE hoped that the public would receive prior information and felt that Community funding should be used to provide the public with the opportunity to seek a second opinion. Finally, the monitoring and effects of the impact assessment should be made available to the public. Commissioner BJERREGAARD stated that the Commission could only take over part of the amendments tabled; Amendments Nos 28, 33, 35 and 36 were rejected.