What is the difference between prior consultation and public inquiry?

- Prior consultation takes place upstream, at a time when the project can still evolve: it concerns its opportunity, its objectives and characteristics, its socio-economic and environmental issues, land use planning, accessibility, its alternatives — including the situation in the absence of a project — and the proposed variants. It takes place under the aegis of the National Commission for Public Debate and its guarantors.

- The public inquiry, if it takes place in a second phase, concerns a stabilized project. It takes place under the aegis of an independent commission of inquiry which collects public observations and issues an opinion on its public utility nature, before the State decides on the declaration of public utility of the project, and, if it is pronounced, which paves the way for its implementation.