In a judgment handed down on Thursday, 9 October (Case C-368/24), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ordered Greece to pay financial penalties for failing to comply with a judgment from July 2014 that required it to stop using an overloaded landfill in the Zakynthos National Maritime Park (a site with a ‘Natura 2000’ designation).
In its judgment, the court notes that, since June 2017 (the reference date in the letter of formal notice), Greece has not come up with a development plan to operate the site in question in accordance with the directive (1999/31) governing landfills. Nor did it decommission the landfill in question, which continued to receive waste until the end of 2017.
Consequently, the Greek authorities are ordered to pay the European Commission a penalty payment of €12,500 for each day of delay starting from the date of delivery of this judgment and continuing until the date of compliance with the 2014 judgment as well as a lump sum of €5,500,000.
The European court emphasised that the amounts decided upon are justified by the seriousness of the infringement, which poses a significant risk to the environment and to human health. It also notes that Greece has failed to comply with previous judgments in similar cases several times.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/iug (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)