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On 11 July 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that current prohibition of hunting wolves in Austria is valid, according to the so-called Habitats Directive.
In June and July 2022, a wolf killed 20 sheep in Tyrol. The regional government authorised to temporarily exclude it from protection and to remove it, as it represented an imminent significant danger to herds and crops.
Five animal and environmental NGOs, including WWF, challenged the Tyrolean decision in Austria, based on the mentioned EU legal instrument.
The Tyrolean Regional Administrative Court had doubts about EU law applicable to Austria and thus asked the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
The Luxembourg Court recalled that not only the Habitats Directive, but also the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, signed on 19 September 1979 in Berne (Switzerland), to which the European Union is a party, classifies wolves in the list of species under strict protection.
It also reminded that Article 12(1) of the Habitats Directive, which provides for the prohibition of wolves killing, does not allow for such killing if wolf population achieves a favourable conservation status.
Article 16(1) of the same Directive allows for the killing if there is no satisfactory alternative, the derogation does not jeopardise the population of wolves, an interest to protect biological diversity can be proved and it is needed to prevent serious damage. However, the Tyrolean Court doubted whether the population should be assessed at local and national level, or else beyond.
Rapporteur Judge Alexander Arabadjiev from Bulgaria and his colleagues first argue that the exception allowed by Article 16(1) must be interpreted restrictively and bearing in mind the long-term conservation of the wolf population.
After, they go on to say, together with the Commission, that a first stage of the assessment must be done locally and nationally, and then eventually a second assessment should be carried out at cross-border level.
Furthermore, the Tyrolean Court raised the ambiguity of the concept ‘serious damage’, in particular, whether it covers future indirect damage, as it should, in our opinion, in order to protect the primary sector. For example, what about the abandonment of farms and the consequent reduction in the total number of herds?
Following once more the European Commission, the CJEU responds negatively; the danger must be “at least largely attributable” to the wolf and a causal link, or at least, a high probability link between wolf killing prohibition and serious damage must be accredited.
On the contrary, Arabadjiev et al. do not accept eventual long-term macroeconomic developments, which they consider akin to abstract risk, or damagec caused by various and multiple causes.
Finally, the referring court in Tyrol asked whether an eventual satisfactory alternative to the killing of the wolf means a technically satisfactory alternative and/or an economically satisfactory alternative. In our opinion, in order to protect the primary sector, the economic consideration should be included. For example, measures for the protection of pastures and herds, such as fences, sheepdogs or shepherds entail very relevant costs.
For the third time, the Court follows the European Commission in its preference for such measures as “non-lethal preventive means”, adapt, where possible, human practices to promote a “culture of coexistence between the wolf population, herds and breeders”. This sounds rather naive or ideological, as if natural instinct of animals (in this case, wolves) did not determine their conduct.
According to the CJEU, economic costs may be taken into account, but not “decisively”. Farmers might need to bear “particularly high costs” before recurring to the killing of a wolf to save their sheep. EU funds are available for Member States to implement such measures. In our opinion, that amounts to prioritising the availability of taxpayers’ money in favour of EU ideology.
Source of image: Euractiv