Lithuania

ENThe biggest enlargement in the history of the European Union occurred on 1 May 2004 with the accession of ten Central and Eastern European countries. One of these was Lithuania, a country then still battling the repercussions of involuntary incorporation into the Soviet Union for 50 years. Accession to the EU was a key plan in Lithuania’s foreign policy from the moment independence was declared on 11 March 1990. Lithuania is a relatively small member state with a population of 2.9 million and total area of 65,000 km2, of which 33.3% is covered by forest and 13% belongs to the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. Since acceding to the EU, Lithuania has gained a unique experience in developing its own environmental system. Transposition of the EU environmental acquis was one of the most technically difficult challenges. More than 300 directives, regulations, decisions and recommendations had to be integrated into the national body of legislation.The goal of this chapter is to identify and analyse the no net loss (NNL) mechanisms that currently exist in Lithuania and which build on the EU and Lithuanian legal systems. A number of technical, ecological, economic and other factors determine the compensation of biodiversity loss at national level. However, political resolve and the architecture of the country’s legal system, as will be shown later, remain the most influential criteria for the effective protection of biodiversity. Broadly speaking, there are two types of environmental evaluations relevant to NNL situations when impacts are to be assessed: ex ante evaluation of plans and projects, here illustrated through the case study on Boros Schneiden, and ex post evaluations of environmental damage, which will be presented by reference to case law. The analysis takes its lead from Article 6(4) of the EU Habitats Directive, the only article setting down a mandatory requirement to compensate for unavoidable residual impacts on habitats and species of Community interest in the EU. Further examination of the Lithuanian experience in transposing the EU legislation, e.g. EIA/SEA and ELD, will provide an illustrative example in the context of the theoretical analysis of the potential of existing instruments at EU level to contribute to NNL.