E-7/25
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Deadlines: Motivation ministry: 6 June 2025 Written observations: 23 July 2025
Keywords: Water Framework Direct, environmental impact assessment
Subject: Directive 2000/60/EC and Directive 2011/92/EU.
Facts of the case: Iceland’s District Court considered a dispute over a 20-year groundwater abstraction licence granted to Benchmark Genetics Iceland. Plaintiffs challenged the licence, arguing that under the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), the water body’s status must first be assessed and included in the river basin management plan before any authorisation. Furthermore, they argued that under the EIA Directive (2011/92/EU), the environmental impact report must detail the water body’s quantitative and chemical status. The court found that the status had not been incorporated into the management plan but it had been assessed elsewhere, creating justifiable doubt on whether authorisation is precluded until plan publication. The court therefore referred the question to the EFTA Court.
Request for an advisory opinion: An advisory opinion is sought from the EFTA Court regarding the following question:
Whether the provisions of Directive 2000/60/EC, in particular the provisions of that Directive's Article 4, must be interpreted as precluding the granting of authorisation for a project which may potentially affect the status of a groundwater body for which classification and status assessment in the river basin management plan are required under that directive, prior to such assessment having been conducted and its results set forth in a river basin management plan in accordance with that directive's provisions. That the provision bars the authorisation of a project, irrespective of whether a status assessment has been conducted, if the assessment results have not been set forth in the river basin management plan.
Cited (recent) case-law: -
Policy Area:
