New EIA Legislation May Slow Down The Building-Permit Procedure

On 13 December 2011, the new European Directive No. 2011/92/EU on the assessment of the effects of certain public and projects on the environment (hereinafter as the "EIA Directive"), which codified the previous regulation, entered into force. Not for the first time, in April 2013 the European Commission initiated an infringement procedure against the Czech Republic due to the incorrect transposition of the aforementioned Directive that is carried out by Act No. 100/2001 Coll., on environmental impact assessment (hereinafter as the "EIA Act"). The most essential objectives of the European Commission to the national legislation consist in the fact that besides other things (i) the EIA procedure in the Czech Republic does not result in a separate administrative decision with binding effect for the follow-up zoning/building-permit proceedings according to the Czech Building Code that might lead to certain changes in the assessed projects in such proceedings that no longer