Brussels, 02/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - In a monthly salvo of infringement procedures launched on 27 October by the European Commission, several member states have been singled out for persistent failure to respect European environmental legislation. Luxembourg will therefore be taken to the European Court of Justice for a second time (final stage of the procedure) and face the threat of a heavy fine if the country persists in failing to execute the European Court of Justice's ruling made five years ago.
At the same time, France, Greece, Hungary and Poland will be sent one or indeed a number of reasons opinions (second stage of the procedure) for having failed to rectify their shortcomings, despite several reminders. These member states will have two months to comply, failing which, the Commission may summons them to the European Court of Justice. An explanation of the legislation concerned and the kind of infringement committed now follows.
Waste water treatment. The European Commission is referring Luxembourg back to the European Court of Justice for a second time for poor treatment of urban wastewater. The country is being threatened with a daily a fine of €11,340 as part of a lump sum of €2.2 million for failing to execute the court ruling made against Luxembourg in November 2006 for failing to respect the provisions in Directive 91/271/EEC applicable to “sensitive areas”. Since then, Luxembourg has certainly introduced more rigorous treatment for agglomerations of more than 10,000 people. Luxembourg contains 12 such agglomerations but four of these are still not compliant. While some works have been planned and are expected to finish by the end of 2011, works on two urban wastewater treatment plants have been seriously delayed. These concern the extension of the Bleesbrück plant in the town of Diekirch and the connection of the Bonnevoie plant to the Beggen treatment plant, in the city of Luxembourg. The Commission can no longer tolerate these delays. Commissioner Janez Potoènik for the environment said “untreated urban waste water is detrimental to the quality of Europe's rivers, lakes and coastal waters and a threat to public health. Delays in providing citizens with the necessary levels of protection are unacceptable.”
Directive on Mining Waste. Poland will receive a reasoned opinion for inappropriate transposition of Directive 2006/21/EC. Despite a warning letter addressed to the country last February, the Commission has pointed out that Poland has still failed to transpose certain provisions regarding the maintenance of extractive waste management following the closure of mines, the objectives and contents of waste management plans, public access to information on waste management plans, prevention of major accident impacts across borders, public participation in reviewing external emergency plans and the application of the environmental liability system to all activities involved in waste management in the extractive industries . Hungary has been accused of having failed to enact all the necessary amendments for bringing its national legislation into line with this directive. Despite receiving a warning letter last March, the definition of “treatment” and “extractive industries” in Hungarian law still restricts the directive's field of application.
Packaging and waste packaging. The Commission has criticised Poland for having inappropriately transposed Directive 94/52/EC and the unacceptable slowness of the country's efforts made to rectify this problem. Analysis of the Polish law that transposed the directive in May 2011 revealed shortcomings that the warning letter highlighted in February. These shortcomings involved waste prevention, evaluation objectives and glass recycling, the review of existing regulation preventing the use of recycled waste packaging, indicative criteria for defining “packaging”, as well as provisions on data that should be included in a national database on packaging and waste packaging. The reasoned opinion that has just been sent to the Polish authorities intends to speed up the changes Poland had announced last April.
Nitrate pollution of water. France and Greece are being called upon to adopt more forthright measures to respect Directive 91/676/EEC on the protection of water from agricultural sources of nitrate, as from immediate effect. This directive requires member states to monitor water and highlight areas that are sensitive to this kind of pollution. The Commission has criticised France for its inappropriately slow response to introducing measures to rectify the many shortcomings in its legislation and action plans (prohibition periods that are too short and restrictions concerning the sewage from agricultural and fertiliser effluence, which are insufficient) and inadequate indications regarding sensitive areas. The Commission considers that Greece has failed to introduce improvements fast enough which had been promised in a way to improve shortcomings revealed in its seven action programmes adopted by the country in 2001 and 2006. (AN/transl;fl)