The Directive's main aim is to ensure that the authority giving the primary consent (the 'competent authority') for a particular project makes its decision in the knowledge of any likely significant effects on the environment. The Directive, therefore, sets out a procedure that must be followed for certain types of project before they can be given 'development consent'. This procedure, known as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), is a means of drawing together, in a systematic way, an assessment of a project's likely significant environmental effects. This helps to ensure that the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope for reducing them, are properly understood by the.
