The Present and Future of Environmental Impact Assessment in Portugal: Notes on a “Reform Foretold”

Abstract

The Portuguese legal framework on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is expected to undergo significant changes, particularly as a result of the EU directive on this matter – Directive 97/11/EC – which obliges the Portuguese State to implement such changes by March 1999.

In this article, the authors analyse some of the most controversial aspects of the EIA regime from both a theoretical and practical standpoint, focusing on issues that are likely to be amended by the national legislator. Within this perspective, they address fundamental questions such as the adoption of a new conception of the EIA procedure, a clearer definition of the scope of EIA, a new procedural framework emphasising the role of public consultation, the expected and desirable strengthening of the legal force of the EIA decision, as well as the supervision and sanctioning of conduct contrary to the EIA regime.

These issues are examined from a critical standpoint of the legal framework currently in force, while always taking into account the amendments likely to be introduced in what constitutes a “reform foretold.”