Valutazione ambientale strategica e pianificazione urbanistica: tra principio di precauzione e anti-formalismo

This contribution aims to highlight the reconstruction of the regulations regarding environmental impact assessments, with particular attention to the strategic environmental assessment, recently carried out by the Council of State. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the relationship between these assessments and the more general principles of prevention and precaution, highlighting the specific enhancement that is made of the latter by the Administrative Judge. Indeed, we can note the adoption of an interpretative scheme devoted to substantive and not merely formal compliance with the regulations set up to protect the environment. Of particular interest is the statement that, in the urban context, the EIA is part of a sort of evaluative continuum in which each previous evaluation must be taken into consideration for subsequent, so getting this evaluation within the binaries of the mere scan of the urban planning procedure is likely to bring the value of the protection in question under the aegis of mere formalism. Finally, the contribution highlights the interpretation reaffirmed by the Council of State in relation to the long-standing question of the relationship between the proceeding Authority and the competent Authority in matters of EIA.