New expert article from Anna Alexandra Seuser, University of Trier:

On Wednesday, October 9, 2013, the European Parliament examined the question of revising the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (EIA) and formulated a request for a mandatory environmental impact assessment of so-called fracking procedures. This request is also part of the vote regarding the modification proposal of the European Commission for the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive for specific public and private projects (EIA directive 2011/92/EU) that was presented on October 26, 2012 (COM (2012) 628 final). Originally, the application of the procedure to all hydraulic fracturing projects was not intended. In fact, the proposal of the European Commission asked for existing regulations to remain in place. These regulations stipulate that the obligation to perform an environmental impact assessment depends on the amount of gas extracted. For the member states, this would have meant that either the EIA directive would not have been relevant per se for the planned hydraulic fracturing procedures or that all parties involved would have been uncertain about the legal situation and the directive's legal relevance.

The subject of the vote taken this week was the draft report of the Italian member of the parliament Andrea Zanoni from the liberal ALDE group that contains the proposal to make testing mandatory for both exploration – the exploration of raw material deposits in the earth's crust, that is – and exploitation wells with the new EIA directive. In a first reading, 322 delegates voted yes and 311 voted no.

The delegates proposed that in the future, hydraulic fracturing projects that have been heavily debated on a national level in the past should generally be subject to environmental impact assessments in Europe. They plan to make use of the political principle of environmental precaution which is to apply regardless of the quantity extracted in this context. Furthermore, this obligation is to apply both for the exploitation and exploration of possible shale gas deposits. EU delegates also suggested a higher transparency of information for the public regarding pending hydraulic fracturing projects. Moreover, precautions are to be taken to prevent conflicts of interest and to "define clear criteria for involving the public with the goal of achieving more acceptance" (Zanoni). 

A binding EIA obligation in this sense has already been discussed on a national level several times as well in order to provide adequate protection of our groundwater and surface waters. In this context, it was always argued that the dangerous chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing pose a risk to water quality and our vital water supplies. Another issue regarded as problematic was the disposal of the contaminated waste water that results during hydraulic fracturing. Recent events in Colorado, where torrential rainfalls caused thousands of above-ground storage facilities of fracking waste water with unknown dangerous chemical additives from the production process to spill resulting in the possible long-term contamination of drinking water resources, had once more rekindled the debate in Germany.

What are the results of the parliament's request? 

An environmental impact assessment as proposed would allow environmental protection issues and the possible impact of hydraulic fracturing on the population to be researched and observed adequately – there is no doubt about this for critics of fracking. Even if the request is a first step in this direction, it is not to be hastily equated with an already approved EIA obligation. In fact, it remains to be seen whether the European Parliament's request will be accepted by the Council of the European Union in the further proceedings. Clear results may not be available until after the second or even the third reading. This could still be some time. Should the parliament and council agree on a new EIA directive, responsibilities for the implementation of the measures included therein will be transferred to the member states at their discretion - a scenario that promises to be no less explosive. This has already been well documented by the month-long struggle of the (outgoing) coalition (CDU/CSU and FDP) to pass a German law regulating the controversial shale gas production which was finally deemed "failed" in June 2013.