## Facts

- A German authority granted a permit to Trianel to construct and operate a coal-fired power plant in Lünen, Germany, located within about 8 km of multiple special areas of conservation protected under EU habitat rules.
- A German environmental NGO (BUND NRW, a regional Friends of the Earth organization) sought annulment of the permit in German administrative court, alleging violations of German measures implementing EU environmental law.
- Under German procedural law, standing generally required impairment of a “subjective public-law right,” which the referring court viewed as excluding claims based on rules protecting the environment and the public interest rather than individual rights.
- The Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia questioned whether this standing limitation conflicted with EU access-to-justice requirements for environmental matters and referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling.
- The reference concerned Article 10a of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive (as amended to implement Aarhus Convention access-to-justice requirements), read alongside EU nature-protection obligations.

## Issues

1. Whether EU law precludes national standing rules that bar qualifying environmental NGOs from challenging project-consent decisions unless the NGO can show impairment of individual rights, thereby preventing reliance on EU environmental rules that protect the public interest.
2. Whether Article 10a of the EIA Directive grants qualifying environmental NGOs an enforceable right of access to judicial review such that national courts must set aside conflicting national standing requirements.

## Decision

- The CJEU held that Article 10a of the EIA Directive precludes national legislation that prevents qualifying environmental NGOs from relying in court on EU environmental rules intended to protect the environment, merely because those rules protect the general public rather than individual rights.
- The CJEU held that qualifying environmental NGOs must be treated as having “sufficient interest” and “rights capable of being impaired” for purposes of access to a review procedure under Article 10a.
- The CJEU held that, to the extent national standing rules conflict with this requirement, national courts must disapply the restrictive standing condition so NGOs can obtain effective judicial review.
- The CJEU did not decide the validity of the plant permit; it answered the interpretive questions and left the national court to resolve the dispute consistently with EU law.

## Legal Principles

- EU access-to-justice rules for environmental matters require “wide access to justice” for the “public concerned,” including qualifying environmental NGOs.
- Member States may set admissibility conditions for individuals, but they may not apply a strict individual-rights impairment test to qualifying environmental NGOs if it blocks challenges alleging breaches of EU environmental law.
- Qualifying environmental NGOs must be able to challenge both procedural and substantive legality of decisions subject to the EIA public-participation regime, including alleged breaches of EU environmental norms protecting the environment as such.
- Where national standing requirements undermine EU-mandated NGO access to review, national courts must set aside the national restriction to ensure effective judicial protection.

## Conclusion

The CJEU required Member States to provide qualifying environmental NGOs meaningful access to judicial review of environmentally significant project approvals, including the ability to invoke EU environmental rules protecting the public interest, and obligated national courts to disregard conflicting national standing limitations.


Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen eV v. Bezirksregierung Arnsberg, Case C-115/09 (C.J.E.U. 2011)