Court of Justice 16 April 2026, C-27/25 (Opinion of Advocate General Kokott delivered on 16 April 2026.)

Also known as

In these joined preliminary ruling references from Irish courts (Cases C-27/25 and C-356/25), Advocate General Kokott opines that the absence of site-specific conservation objectives for a Natura 2000 site does not preclude a competent authority from conducting either an appropriate assessment or a screening under Article 6(3) of Directive 92/43/EEC (the Habitats Directive), as applied to special protection areas (SPAs) by Article 7 thereof. The AG argues that, where site-specific conservation objectives have not been established, the assessment must proceed on the provisional assumption that all habitat types listed in Annex I, all species listed in Annex II (for Habitats Directive sites), and all qualifying bird species (for SPAs under Directive 2009/147/EC) present at the site are covered by the conservation objectives, with development potentials included where necessary to restore favourable conservation status. The AG further opines that this approach does not reduce site protection and may in practice impose broader protective obligations than a formal site-specific objective-setting exercise, and proposes a temporal limitation on any contrary ruling by the Court of Justice.AI