Filenews 20 May 2024 - by Angelos Nicolaou
The Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment is taking steps to immediately start the process of issuing 27 decrees, setting strict timetables and setting up working groups per group of areas with the aim of completing them by the end of 2025, following the European Commission's decision to refer Cyprus to the Court of Justice of the European Union for its non-compliance with the Habitats Directive.
The decision of the College of Commissioners of the European Commission to refer the Republic of Cyprus to the Court of Justice of the European Union for non-compliance with Directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, for failing to complete the legislative framework governing Natura 2000 sites by issuing protection and management decrees, Received 13/3/2024.
Essentially, 10 multidisciplinary and interdepartmental groups have been created, including the participation of collaborators from NGOs and academic institutions. Experts from Greece will also take part in the process. The system created distributes the work to groups of experts who will be supported by experienced academics, knowledgeable in the species and habitats of Cyprus and experienced in the formulation of decrees. This will ensure a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data necessary for the preparation of decrees.
Concern about the non-compliance of the Republic of Cyprus with the Habitats Directive is recorded by the competent minister, Maria Panayiotou, in a letter to the Audit Office dated . 11/4/2024. The concern is also due to the delay in completing the relevant decrees, as well as the unacceptable quality of the decrees that had been submitted.
By February 2022, nine management and protection decrees had been adopted and submitted to the European Commission, following the timeline given to the Commission in the 2021 letter of formal notice.
In April 2022, the Republic received the reasoned opinion, while it was ready to proceed with the issuance of two more decrees. According to the reasoned opinion dated 6/4/2024, Cyprus has failed to implement its commitments in the letter of formal notice.
Upon receipt of the letter, the Department of Environment (IT) requested a bilateral meeting with the authorities of the European Commission. The meeting took place on 5 July 2022, during which the Commission admitted that the decrees submitted by the Republic were inadvertently disregarded. On the basis of what was said at the above-mentioned meeting, IT requested further technical meetings with the Commission authorities to discuss the quality issues of the Decrees and the lack of measurable conservation objectives. The first technical meeting took place on 10/11/2022.
In the meantime, the IT froze the Article 15 procedure, with the aim of improving the content of the decrees so that they were as compatible as possible with the obligations of the Directive, although the scientific issues that existed had not been resolved. The technical meeting was followed by an "informal" communication between the IT and the Commission authorities, where drafts of the decrees were exchanged and improvements to them were proposed.
In 2023, the IT continued its effort to improve the decrees. In order to eliminate the issue of scientific deficiencies, it launched a tender (May 2023) for the preparation of the six-year report under Article 17 of Directive 92/43/EEC, which included provision for the setting of Favourable Reference Values (EDPs) and specific conservation objectives for all SACs. The outcome of this work is expected in September 2025, after the six-year report is submitted in July 2025.
Before the decision to refer the Republic to the Court was made public, the IT de-frozen the procedure under Article 15 and restarted the process of preparing the decrees, in the same form as the initials with some improvements.
According to the competent minister, the IT could, instead of proceeding with a freeze of the process in 2022, when discussions with the Commission began, continue with the issuance of the decrees. According to IT, the delay observed was not deliberate and there was no obstruction or sloppiness on its part. Nevertheless, the compliance gap remains.
