On Thursday 7 December 2017, the European Commission decided to refer Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to notify complete transposition of EU rules on collective management of copyright directive 2014/26/EU.
The Commission considers that these four-member states failed to meet their obligation to provide notification before April 2016, as required by the directive, of the complete transposition of the provisions on the collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use into national law. The Commission points out that these four countries failed to respond to the warning letter it sent them in May 2016 or to the reasoned opinions sent in February 2017.
Romania is also singled out for shortcomings in its transposition of the directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.
The financial penalties called for are as follows: Bulgaria - €19,121.60 per day, Luxembourg - €12,920.00 per day, Romania - €42,377.60 per day and Spain - €123,928.64 per day). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)