The Court of Justice of the EU has rejected the European Commission's action against the Czech Republic for refusing to take back 20,000 tonnes of Geobal mixture shipped to Poland between late 2010 and early 2011, in a judgment delivered on Thursday 14 March (Case C-399/17).
In 2017, alerted by an environmental association, the Commission investigated this transfer by train of Geobal, a mixture of acid tars from oil refining, carbon dust and calcium oxide, from Litvínov in the Czech Republic to Katowice in Poland. It brought an action before the Court of Justice alleging an infringement of the Regulation (1013/2006) on Shipments of Waste.
In its judgment, the Court dismissed the Commission’s action, concluding that the Commission had not proved that the mixture constituted waste within the meaning of EU legislation.
According to the European judge, the Commission could not simply rely on the presumption provided for in the Regulation that, in the event of disagreement between the competent authorities of dispatch and destination on the classification of the substance, the disputed Geobal mixture must be considered a waste that cannot be the subject of a shipment.
For the Czech authorities, the disputed mixture was not a waste, as it was registered as a chemical substance under the REACH Regulation (1907/2006).
The Court also points out that the mere fact that Geobal is produced from waste does not make it possible to establish that it is itself waste. A reclamation process can exist to make this waste usable without endangering human health and without harming the environment. The fact that, of the 20,000 tonnes of Geobal transferred, only 6 tonnes were still deposited in Katowice in 2016 also indicates that the mixture was not devoid of any economic utility, particularly as fuel for Polish cement plants, as long as such use was permitted in Poland.
Finally, the Court considers, a potential mis-registration of Geobal as a chemical substance is not such as to establish that the mixture constitutes waste.
For these reasons, the Court considers that Prague has not failed to fulfil its obligations under the Regulation on Shipments of Waste.
See: http://bit.ly/2T5awFN (Mathieu Bion)