Article 6(4) of the Habitats Directive requires a weighing up of environmental and economic interests in order to allow for deviation from valid environmental standards. This provision has to be interpreted in the light of the tasks and aims of the European treaties, especially in the light of...

Sustainable development (SD) in not only a political aim of the EU, but has been also introduced in the European Treaties in 1997 as both legally binding task and goal. This paper develops a comprehensive interpretative and dogmatic understanding of these provisions and their possible...