The European Commission is taking Austria to court for its failure to ensure adequate protection for the Schwarze Sulm river in Steiermark.

In the Commission's view, the construction of a proposed power plant would cause a serious deterioration in the quality of the river, which is one of the longest undisturbed rivers in the region.

The Commission says that the regional authority failed to respect the water quality requirements of the Water Framework Directive when it authorised the hydropower project in 2007. The permit in question was revoked by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Environment in 2009, but Austria's constitutional court dismissed that revocation on purely formal grounds in 2012.

The permit therefore came back into force and can no longer be challenged before a national court,  leading the Commission to open infringement proceedings in 2013, on the grounds that the permit for the power plant is not in line with the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

As building work now appears to have begun on the project, the Commission is referring the case to the EU Court of Justice, on the recommendation of Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik.

According to the Commission, the procedure chosen by the regional authority risks setting a negative precedent for similar hydropower projects in Austria.

Under European legislation, Member States must take measures to prevent the status of their water bodies from deteriorating. An exemption from the non-deterioration principle can only be granted if certain requirements are fulfilled, one of which is the demonstration of an overriding public interest.

In the Commission's view the authorising body did not demonstrate the overriding interest of the project, a view confirmed by the assessment of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Environment, which also contested the overriding public interest.

Austria agreed to review the authorisation decision, but in the review procedure the regional authority merely downgraded the water status of the Schwarze Sulm, claiming that an exemption from the non-deterioration principle was no longer necessary.

This would be a violation of the Water Framework Directive, as the quality of the Schwarze Sulm was documented as 'high' in the river basin management plan of 2009, and the conditions for changing the status of the river have not been respected.