Brussels, 26/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Within the monthly raft of infringement procedures announced on Thursday 26 April, reasoned opinions (second stage of the proceeding) were sent to several member states. Despite several warnings, these countries have persistently failed to respect EU environmental legislation. They will have two months to comply with European law, and if they fail to do so the Commission could summon them to the European Court of Justice and impose heavy fines on them.
Public and private projects impact assessments on environment (Directive 85/337/EC): Austria has not assessed the possible impact of a development to an Austrian ski run. Austria is supposed to transpose the European directive but its legislation unduly exempts projects from this requirement if they are classified as sanitation or adaptation measures. Despite two letters of formal notice sent to Austria in 2009 and 2011, it still considers that this exemption complies with the directive.
Risks linked to modified micro-organisms (Directive 2009/41/EC). Bulgaria has still not correctly transposed the directive incumbent on member states to ensure adoption of all measures necessary to prevent operations linked to genetically modified microorganisms having a negative impact on human health or the environment. The Commission has criticised Bulgarian legislation for having exclusively responded to operations where risk is low level, although the directive defines detailed risk assessment modalities and protection measures to adopt for four levels of risk (no or negligible risk, low risk, moderate and high-risk). (AN/transl.fl)