Following years of deliberation, the European Union (EU) released a recommendation on unconventional hydrocarbons and a related communication in 2014. Although these documents are not legally binding on member states, they are nevertheless of great significance because they indicate, for the first time, the current and likely future stance of EU institutions on the regulation of unconventional hydrocarbons. This paper traces the origins and development of these documents, which provide vital clues for the road ahead in European shale-gas regulation.
Introduction
The potential threats of groundwater contamination, irresponsible disposal of flowback, the repercussions of significant land use, and increased emission of greenhouse gases have been named in recent scientific studies as main potential threats of shale-gas extraction. The current European law framework on environmental protection, mainly consisting of directives and regulations, entails some gaps and does not cover these issues comprehensively. Thus, the EU took recent action to develop shale-gas-specific regulation in order to close the identified gaps in the existing general framework.
Because the existing secondary law norms were elaborated at a time when shale gas extraction was virtually unknown in Europe, one would suspect that they entail provisions that do not sufficiently cover the specific potential threats of this technique.
