Luxembourg, 12/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice hands down several rulings condemning Member States for non-transposition of European directives, thus:
Commission vs/France. France has been condemned for having implemented a law on the hunting season until July 2000 that did not respect the principle of the "complete protection of birds", enshrined in the European directive relating to this. France recognised before the sixth chamber, over which Claus Gulmann presided, that the legislation that was in force at the time did not comply with the said directive. For the Court, the opening of the hunting season was too early for certain species, to the detriment of young birds. It also considered that the application of the law in certain "départemenents" (Lower-Rhine, Upper-Rhine and Moselle) gave too much power to the "préfets" in adopting the dates for the opening and closing of the hunting season.
The European Commission, which is studying last summer's law in detail, is still waiting for some implementing texts, some of which have been criticised by French hunters and ecologists. On the French side, it has to be said that the law in question no longer exists.
Commission vs/United Kingdom. The third chamber over which Claus Gulmann presides, has condemned the United Kingdom for not having correctly implemented the 1991 European directive on the protection of water against pollution by nitrates from agricultural sources. The Commission accused the UK of not having identified: - artificial fresh waters not used for collecting drinking water that also risk containing excessive concentrations of nitrates; - all ground water (and not only that earmarked for human consumption) for the same reasons; all the vulnerable areas of Northern Ireland. London acknowledged these facts but explained that when transposing the directive it had given a different interpretation to what the directive meant by "waters affected by pollution".
Commission vs/Italy. The Italian government acknowledged its delay in implementing the 1996 European directives on additives in animal feed, due, notably, "to the complexity of the procedure that is required under Italian law". These procedures are in their final phase, but the delay means that Italy has been condemned by the first Chamber over which Melchior Wathelet presides.
Commission vs/Italy. Italy has been condemned for not having adopted (deadline 30 June 1998) the 1998 European directive on the provision of an open network for voice telephony. A bill has been handed to the Commission for information and to the Consiglio di stato for opinion. The latter has asked for the opinion of the relevant authorities (audiovisual and competition) before ruling, Italy explained. It was nevertheless condemned by the third Chamber (see another similar condemnation of Italy on the open networks in telecommunications in EUROPE of 4/5 December 2000, p.15).