Brussels, 15/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has decided to go on to the next stage in infringement proceedings against Greece, for continued non-respect of the Directive on batteries and accumulators containing dangerous substances (Directive 91/157/EEC). Greece will receive a reasoned opinion under Article 228 of the Treaty (formerly Article 171) for failure to implement a 1999 ruling by the Court of Justice, which had found it guilty of not having established and forwarded to the Commission a battery waste plan in order to achieve controlled reduction of the impact of battery waste on the environment. The deadline set for this was 17 September 1992. Greece was already 7 years behind the timetable set at the time of the ruling, and has still not fulfilled this obligation. The Commission therefore considers a step in the proceedings should be taken resulting in financial penalties if Greece continues to ignore the Court's ruling. "The Commission takes its job of following up Court rulings very seriously. I hope that Greece will soon be in a position to comply", commented Margot Wallström, Environment Commissioner.