Document 49 - Amendment to the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment

The draft law introduces a narrowly defined exception that will allow the validity of older EIA opinions for first-class local road projects located in metropolitan development areas to be extended up to three times, provided they were issued before January 1, 2024. The aim is to avoid the need for repeated EIA processes for long-term infrastructure projects, such as urban ring roads in Prague, Brno, or Ostrava. The exception explicitly does not apply to opinions whose validity has already expired, ensuring that there is no “revival” of expired opinions or retroactivity. The law is set to take effect on the fifteenth day after its promulgation, enabling the timely extension of key opinions before their expiration.

The amendment is presented as a legislatively clean solution that does not interfere with existing transitional provisions and maintains legal certainty. It does not constitute an infringement on European EIA regulations but merely adjusts the extension regime for already issued opinions in precisely defined cases.