43It follows from the considerations above that the answer to the second question is that a national court may, when this is allowed by domestic law, exceptionally and case by case, limit in time certain effects of a declaration of the illegality of a provision of national law adopted in disregard of the obligations provided for by Directive 2001/42, in particular the obligations arising from Article 6(3) of the directive, provided that such a limitation is dictated by an overriding consideration linked to environmental protection and having regard to the specific circumstances of the case pending before it. That exceptional power may, however, be exercised only if all the conditions flowing from the judgment of 28 February 2012 in Inter-Environnement Wallonie and Terre wallonne (C‑41/11, EU:C:2012:103) are satisfied, namely:— that the contested provision of national law constitutes a measure correctly transposing EU law on environmental protection;— that the adoption and coming into force of a new provision of national law do not make it possible to avoid the damaging effects on the environment arising from the annulment of the contested provision of national law;— that annulment of the contested provision of national law would have the effect of creating a legal vacuum concerning the transposition of EU law on environmental protection which would be more damaging to the environment, in the sense that that annulment would result in lesser protection and would thus run counter to the essential objective of the EU law; and— that any exceptional maintaining of the effects of the contested provision of national law lasts only for the period strictly necessary for the adoption of the measures making it possible to remedy the irregularity found.
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