Social License to Operate (SLO) in the Shale Sector: A Contextual Study of the European Union

This article commences by offering a summary of the EU’s works on the regulatory environment for the shale gas industry (s 1.1), and is divided into following parts (i) ‘Background’ (s 2), (ii), ‘Legislative Level’ (s 3), (iii) ‘Plans and Programmes: SEA’ (s 4), (iv) ‘Project Level: EIA’ (s 5), and (v) ‘Public Participation in other EU Legislation’ (s 6). Section 2 offers a necessary background of this article by discussing (i) the case for the shale gas in the EU (s 2.1), (ii) the spectrum of shale gas related problems (s 2.2), (iii) public views on fracking and the shale gas industry throughout the EU (s 2.3), and (iv) the concept of the SLO (s 2.4). Section 3 discusses problems of public participation, access to information and access to justice in shale gas related lawmaking at the EU-level (s 3.1) and Member States level (s 3.2). Section 4 discusses the same problems in developing environmental plans and programmes (strategic environmental impact assessment process) at the level of EU institutions (s 4.2) and at the level of national authorities responsible for the preparation of such plans and programmes (s 4.3 and s 4.4). Section 5 discusses the same problems in the realisation of specific shale gas related projects (in the course of the environmental impact assessment) including EU legislation (s 5.2) and its implementation in Member States (s 5.3). Finally, section 6 briefly discusses the same problems in a number of more specific environment related acts including (i) Habitats Directive (s 6.2), (ii) Birds Directive (s 6.3), (iii) Water Framework Directive (s 6.4), (iv) Industrial Emissions Directive (s 6.5) and (v) selected other acts (s 6.6).