47The Court has thus held that in order for the integrity of a site as a natural habitat not to be adversely affected for the purposes of the second sentence of Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive the site needs to be preserved at a favourable conservation status; this entails the lasting preservation of the constitutive characteristics of the site concerned that are connected to the presence of a natural habitat type whose preservation was the objective justifying the designation of that site in the list of sites of Community importance, in accordance with the directive (judgment of 15 May 2014 in Briels and Others, C‑521/12, EU:C:2014:330, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).