ClientEarth & Collectif Nourrir v. European Commission

Two environmental NGOs (ClientEarth and Collectif Nourrir), sought the annulment of the European Commission’s decision of May 5, 2023. That decision had rejected their request for internal review of the act by which the Commission approved the French Strategic Plan under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2023–2027 (French CSPAC). The applicants argued that the French PSPAC was incompatible with the essential requirements of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 (CAP Regulation), in particular due to manifest errors of assessment regarding the plan's contribution to specific environmental and climate objectives. The applicants alleged that the Commission had committed several manifest errors of assessment regarding the contribution of the French PSPAC to the achievement of specific objective D in terms of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to long-term national targets, such as the 18% reduction in GHG emissions from the agricultural sector set by the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC). The General Court ultimately rejected the arguments based on manifest errors of assessment relating to Objective D, concluding that the Commission had not erred in considering that intervention 32.04 contributed, on a complementary basis, to the objective of reducing GHG emissions. However, the General Court annulled the Commission’s decision of May 5 2023, in its entirety. Indeed, it concluded that the Commission had committed a manifest error of assessment by rejecting a specific ground in the internal review request. This error concerned the non-compliance of the BCAE 7 standard (Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions 7) as implemented by the French CSPAC, which relates to crop rotation. The Court found that the BCAE 7 standard, as set by France, limited the crop rotation obligation to 35% of the crop area and introduced a multi-year rotation alternative, which did not comply with the minimum requirements of Annexe III of Regulation 2021/2115, which requires a crop change at least once per year at the plot level. Since BCAE 7 falls under “environmental law” within the meaning of the Aarhus Regulation, and the Commission’s rejection decision was indivisible (as the review concerned the overall assessment of the CSPAC’s effective contribution), the illegality regarding BCAE 7 led to the annulment of the entire rejection decision.