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The European Union and its Member States have been creating a network of protected areas for habitats and species since 1979. In 2017, this included over 27,500 Natura 2000 sites, a combined area of over 18 percent of the land surface in the EU and around 395,000 km2 of marine territory. According to Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC1 (HD), any projects and plans within these sites or in their vicinity require an appropriate assessment to ensure that they will not have a significant impact on the integrity of Natura 2000 site. The project or plan is to be rejected by the national authorities if this cannot be excluded without remaining reasonable scientific doubts. This article explores the procedural steps and the requirements that must be examined, which are now covered by comprehensive European Court of Justice (ECJ)2 case law. Numerous questions that are relevant in practice, however, have only been considered by national courts to date. These will be introduced in this article based on the decisions of the German Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG)3 and will be the focus of a critical discussion. Questions on the range covered by the term project and on determining significant impacts will be entered into in greater detail in two further articles, given the scope of the aspects to be examined and explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost 500 municipal solid waste incineration plants in the EU, Norway and Switzerland generate about 17.6 Mt/a of incinerator bottom ash (IBA). IBA contains minerals and metals. Metals are mostly separated and sold to the scrap market and minerals are either disposed of in landfills or utilised in the construction sector. Since there is no uniform regulation for IBA utilisation at EU level, countries developed own rules with varying requirements for utilisation. As a result from a cooperation network between European experts an up-to-date overview of documents regulating IBA utilisation is presented. Furthermore, this work highlights the different requirements that have to be considered. Overall, 51 different parameters for the total content and 36 different parameters for the emission by leaching are defined. An analysis of the defined parameter reveals that leaching parameters are significantly more to be considered compared to total content parameters. In order to assess the leaching behaviour nine different leaching tests, including batch tests, up-flow percolation tests and one diffusion test (monolithic materials) are in place. A further discussion of leaching parameters showed that certain countries took over limit values initially defined for landfills for inert waste and adopted them for IBA utilisation. The overall utilisation rate of IBA in construction works is approximately 54 wt%. It is revealed that the rate of utilisation does not necessarily depend on how well regulated IBA utilisation is, but rather seems to be a result of political commitment for IBA recycling and economically interesting circumstances., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)