About the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)
The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC is the EU’s core water law that sets a common framework for protecting and enhancing the status of all inland surface waters, transitional and coastal waters, and groundwater, with the overarching objective of achieving “good” status and preventing further deterioration. It requires Member States to manage waters at the scale of river basin districts, prepare and periodically update river basin management plans and programmes of measures in six‑year cycles, and set environmental quality standards for key pollutants.
The Directive is implemented through national legislation and institutions, including designated competent authorities that monitor water bodies, classify their status, and coordinate measures across sectors such as agriculture, industry and urban wastewater. Public participation is a central element: draft river basin management plans must be subject to consultation so that stakeholders and the public can help shape water policy and measures. Compliance is enforced by Member States’ administrative and judicial systems, complemented by the European Commission’s oversight and, where needed, infringement proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union in cases of inadequate transposition, insufficient measures or missed deadlines.
Ryanair v. An Bord Pleanála (No. 2) [2025] IEHC 194
The applicant sought to appeal the High Court’s dismissal of its judicial review, which had challenged a planning permission for a tunnel at Dublin Airport. The applicant's appeal was based solely on a narrow point regarding the inspector's wording on a Local Area Plan contravention. This application concerned whether this specific, technical issue was suitable for a further appeal.
Relevant EU Directive
- The Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC): The High Court acknowledged that this formed a significant part of the applicant’s original argument but was expressly abandoned for the purposes of the leave to appeal application. Consequently, no substantive analysis of its provisions was undertaken in this judgment.
Key Points in EU Law
The Court did not engage in substantive EU law as the applicant’s remaining legal point concerned the interpretation of the Local Area Plan under domestic planning law.
Conclusion
The High Court refused the application for leave to appeal. It found that the proposed question did not arise from the pleadings or the substance of the judgment, did not constitute a pure point of law of exceptional public importance, and that a further appeal would not be in the public interest, due to the project’s safety rationale.
Ryanair Designated Activity Company v. an Bord Pleanála (No.1) [2025] IEHC 74
The applicant applied to the High Court seeking declaratory relief and an order of certiorari because the respondent granted the notice party planning permission for a tunnel at Dublin Airport, arguing the decision was invalid. Its grounds were that the development contravened the Local Area Plan and was granted in breach of Article 4(1) of the Water Frameworks Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC).
Relevant EU Directive
- The Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC): The applicant argued that the impugned decision was granted in breach of Article 4(1) of the Water Framework Directive. The Court addresses the issue by examining the two-pronged prohibition from the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. case (C-461/13). Humphreys J. determined that the planning authority had adequately applied the first limb by concluding, that the airport tunnel project would not cause a deterioration of the already polluted “Cuckoo Stream”. A project must also be refused under the second limb if it is likely to jeopardise the attainment of good ecological and chemical status in the affected water body. The High Court held that the applicant’s challenge was abstract and unsubstantiated. It reasoned that since the project was found not to cause deterioration, and the applicant pointed to no specific mechanism by which the future improvement of the stream could be hindered, the respondent was not required to provide an explicit separate analysis for this issue.
- EIA Directive (Directive 2011/92/EU): The EIA Directive arose from the applicant’s subsidiary argument that the environmental impact assessment report (“EIAR”) contained insufficient detail on the project's potential water impacts. The Court rejected this challenge, upholding the inspector's finding that while the data was limited, this lack of detail was understandable given the significant constraint of the tunnel's location beneath an operational runway.
Key Points of EU Law
The case provides a clear interpretation of the Water Framework Directive's core obligations as set out in Article 4(1) and clarified in the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. ruling. The Directive establishes a prohibitive test. The obligation on authorities is to refuse projects that: (i) cause deterioration or (ii) jeopardise the attainment of good water status. In doing so, the Court rejects the argument that the test imposes a positive obligation to only permit projects that actively improve water status, deeming this interpretation unsupported by the Directive's text, existing jurisprudence, and unworkable in practice.
Regarding the EIA Directive, the judgment affirmed that the Directive does not require absolute scientific certainty, but rather a sufficient assessment based on the information reasonably available at the time.
Conclusion
The High Court dismissed the applicant’s judicial review challenge in its entirety, thereby upholding the grant of planning permission for the airport tunnel. The Court did not accept that the developments were EIA projects, and so “the question of their being subjected to EIA does not arise – or, more accurately, should not have arisen beyond a consideration of the form, nature or type of the Proposed Developments” (para. 208). The planning authority had not erred in law regarding the Local Area Plan, as the relevant statute did not apply a strict material contravention test to such plans in this context. The applicant failed to provide any factual basis to show the project would jeopardise the attainment of good water status, and it firmly rejected the argument that the Directive requires a project to actively improve water quality.
