Possible non-compliance with Environmental Impact Assessment Directives 85/337/EEC, 97/11/EC and 2001/42/EC in the work to enlarge Treviso's Canova airport
19.1.2012
Question for written answer E-000598/2012
to the Commission
Rule 117
Andrea Zanoni (ALDE)
Environmental compatibility approval was requested from the Italian Ministry of the Environment for the project entitled ‘Increasing the productivity of Treviso civil airport: impact control and reduction plan’ on 6 December 2002, to which the Ministry replied with a ‘provisionally negative opinion’[1] for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
That decision required the competent authorities to present a new EIA within three months, which was not done. Furthermore, it imposed a precautionary limit of not more than 16 300 flights a year, a limit which was not complied with, because there were 20 588 flights to and from the airport in 2010.
Since 2007, the companies managing the airport, SAVE S.p.A. and AERTRE S.p.A., have carried out enlargement work, such as the new passenger terminal, built on two stories and totalling around 10 000 square metres, and new parking areas.
ENAC[2] subsequently authorised a new airport development plan for the airport without submitting it for an EIA and, between 5 June 2011 and 5 December 2011, carried out further improvement and enlargement works there, among which was a radical overhaul of the runway, with a new approach lighting system, which will increase the number of aircraft and passenger arrivals.
That work were carried out by virtue of a Ministry of the Environment text, dated 5 May 2011[3] which granted a ‘favourable opinion on exemption from the EIA procedure’. That authorisation has been referred to the Administrative Court of the Veneto region by the Committee for the Reduction of the Environmental Impact of Treviso Airport, which is an association consisting of 520 residents of the area surrounding the airport, and by Italia Nostra, a national association recognised by the Ministry of the Environment.
Regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment, it should be clarified that, in the past, the Council of State has, in several judgments[4], found that it is unlawful to subdivide or split up a project in order to bypass such procedures.
On the basis of the above, does the Commission consider that Directives 85/337/EEC, 97/11/EC and 2001/42/EC have been correctly applied by the Italian authorities and by the company managing Treviso’s ‘A. Canova’ airport? What action will it take if it feels that those directives have not been correctly applied?
- [1] Ministerial Decree of the Ministry of the Environment No 398 of 14 May 2007.
- [2] Italian National Civil Aviation Authority.
- [3] Prot. No DVA-2011-0010666 of 5 May 2011.
- [4] Judgment 4368 of 30 August 2002 of section VI and judgment No 5760 of 2 October 2006 (Court of Cassation 11 July 2006) of section IV.
OJ C 235 E, 14/08/2013