Request for a preliminary ruling from the Consiglio di Stato (Italy) lodged on 27 February 2020 — Regione Puglia v Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare and Others

(Case C-110/20)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Consiglio di Stato

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Regione Puglia

Defendant: Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo, Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Commissione tecnica di verifica dell’impatto ambientale

Question referred

Is Directive 94/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 ¹ to be interpreted as precluding national legislation such as that described which on the one hand recommends, for the purpose of issuing a hydrocarbons exploration permit, an area of a specified extent, granted for a specific period of time — in the present case, an area of 750 square kilometres for six years — and on the other hand allows those limits to be exceeded by the issue of multiple exploration permits for adjacent areas to the same legal entity, provided that they are issued following separate administrative procedures?

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¹     Directive 94/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on the conditions for granting and using authorizations for the prospection, exploration and production of hydrocarbons (OJ 1994 L 164, p. 3).