The Court of Justice of the European Union fined Spain a lump sum of €15 million, on Thursday 25 February, for failing to transpose the directive (2016/680) protecting personal data in the prevention and detection of criminal offences (case C-658/19).
The Court also imposed on Madrid a daily penalty payment of €89,000 “until the infringement is brought to an end”.
The European Commission had sent Spain a letter of formal notice in July 2018 asking it to communicate the transposition measures taken by the deadline of 6 May 2018. This letter remained without effect, and in January 2019, it had sent a reasoned opinion, inviting Madrid to take the necessary measures within two months.
In their reply of March 2019, the Spanish authorities explained their delay due to very exceptional institutional circumstances and promised that the directive would be transposed by March 2020. Acknowledging that these circumstances were not sufficient to justify the alleged breach, Madrid considered that they were relevant for assessing the proportionality of the sanctions proposed by the Commission. The Commission requested a penalty payment of €89,548.20 for each day of delay from the date of the Court’s judgment, and a lump sum of approximately €15.5 million (Article 260(3) TFEU).
In its judgment, the Court considers that the failure to fulfil its obligations falls within the scope of that Article, since no transposition measure within the meaning of that provision had been communicated to the Commission by the expiry of the period prescribed. It adds that Spain has continued to fail in fulfilling its obligations because, at the time of the closure of the written procedure before the Court on 6 May 2020, the country had neither adopted nor communicated the measures necessary to ensure the transposition of the Directive.
“As regards the seriousness and duration of the infringement” the Court therefore decided, for the first time, to impose both a lump sum and a daily penalty payment, pursuant to Article 260(3) TFEU.
See the judgment: https://bit.ly/3kpPHEs (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)