On 14 December 2013, Law 21/2013, of 9 December 2013, on Environmental Assessment, which brings together in a single legal text both the environmental assessment of projects and of plans and programmes.
With regard to the environmental assessment of projects, we are going to focus on the analysis of the changes that this new regulation entails for the application of this procedure to the airport sector. The following changes with respect to the previous legislation (RDL 1/2008) stand out:
- It establishes a ordinary procedure The environmental impact assessment procedure, applicable to Annex I projects, and an abbreviated procedure, for Annex II projects. Until now, although there was an Annex II and in practice a “simplified” environmental impact assessment was carried out for these projects, the procedure was not regulated.
- Express reference is made to Law 48/1960, of 21 July, on Air Navigation, for the definition of airport and aerodrome, This avoids other possible interpretations of the nature of this type of infrastructure.
– Exceptions aerodromes intended exclusively for the following purposes are not subject to environmental assessment health and emergency use, or fire prevention and suppression, when they are not located in protected areas. A common case until now was that of heliports of this type of services, which despite their small size, minimum number of operations and in many cases located in urbanised environments, required environmental processing. In this way, a procedure is avoided which, not being justified in these cases from an environmental point of view, would mean delays in the availability of infrastructures that bring great benefits to society.
- Group 9. d. “All projects included in Annex II when an environmental impact assessment is required by regional legislation” is deleted from Annex I. This, together with the basic nature of the law (including its annexes), makes it possible to to unify the treatment of a project irrespective of the autonomous community where it is carried out. With regard to the sector, with the exception of restricted-use aerodromes with transferred competences, the substantive authorisations fall to bodies of the General State Administration (in the AESA or the Ministry of Defence) and therefore the environmental impact assessment falls to the Ministry responsible for the environment. Being the same environmental body, until now, depending on the Autonomous Community in which an aerodrome project is located, it would be sufficient for it to be treated as Annex II or it would be subject to the regulated environmental assessment procedure as Annex I. This is the case of Autonomous Communities such as Andalusia and the Balearic Islands, where their legislation requires all types of aerodromes to undergo environmental assessment.
In conclusion, and as far as the aeronautical sector is concerned, the new law will improve on a number of shortcomings that have been highlighted by the experience in environmental impact assessment accumulated in recent years, and in particular:
– La graduation of the administrative procedure in terms of the foreseeable environmental impact.
– La concerted environmental impact assessment throughout the country, The aim is to increase legal certainty for developers and to avoid relocation processes, as stated in the explanatory memorandum of the Law itself.
