EU Court advisor rejects planning fee case

national | environment | news report Thursday June 22, 2006 16:20 by Tony Lowes - Friends of the Irish Environment admin at friendsoftheirishenvironment dot net

Bad precedent for Europe

The Advocate General to the European Court today rejected the challenge to the Irish €20 fee for commenting on planning applications under the European Impact Assessment Directive.

EU COURT ADVISOR REJECTS PLANNING FEE CASE

The comprehensive rejection by the Advocate General to the European Court of the challenge to the €20 fee for commenting on planning applications is likely to set a bad precedent across Europe, Friends of the Irish Environment said today.

The Court has been advised that the principle of subsidiarity applies and Ireland is within its rights to determine how a public consultation process takes place, including setting a fee.

In a brief statement regretting the Opinion, FIE claimed that ‘the Advocate General never addressed the central issue – that of the polluter pays principle. A planning fee shifts the cost of examining a project from the developer to a member of the public concerned about the impacts. This reverses the principle of the polluter paying and can not be right. The Advocate General failed the Court in not addressing this key issue.

A spokesman for Friends of the Irish Environment said there was now a 80% certainty of losing the challenge.

There is little doubt other European member state Governments will now join Ireland in placing fees on public participation. The setback follows on two other failed cases taken by the Commission against England under this Directive.

Read the Opinion
http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&S...rcher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=C-216/05&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100