Judgment_paragraph 1 · European Commission v Republic of Poland (C-432/21)

1By its application, the European Commission requests the Court to declare that:– by introducing into the national system provisions according to which forest management based on good practice does not infringe any provision on nature conservation falling within the scope of Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (OJ 1992 L 206, p. 7), as amended by Council Directive 2013/17/EU of 13 May 2013 (OJ 2013 L 158, p. 193) (‘the Habitats Directive’) and Directive 2009/147/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on the conservation of wild birds (OJ 2010 L 20, p. 7), as amended by Directive 2013/17 (‘the Birds Directive’), the Republic of Poland has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 6(1), Article 6(2), Article 12(1)(a) to (d), Article 13(1)(a) and (d) and Article 16(1) of the Habitats Directive and Article 4(1), Article 5(a), (b) and (d) and Article 16(1) of the Birds Directive, and– by excluding the possibility for environmental organisations to challenge forest management plans before a court, the Republic of Poland has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive, in conjunction with the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, Article 216(2) TFEU, Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’) and Article 6(1)(b) and Article 9(2) of the Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-marking and access to justice in environmental matters, signed at Aarhus on 25 June 1998 and approved on behalf of the European Community by Council Decision 2005/370/EC of 17 February 2005 (OJ 2005 L 124, p. 1; ‘the Aarhus Convention’).