Brussels, 01/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has decided to move ahead in infringement procedures against Luxembourg and Belgium for persisting in not fully transposing into domestic law the European directive on integrated pollution prevention and control (directive 96/61/EC of the aforementioned IPPC directive). These two Member States will be brought before the Court of Justice (third stage of the procedure under article 226 of the Treaty) for not having adopted and communicated to the Commission all the required national measures when the deadline to do so expired on 30 October 1999. The details are as follows:
Luxembourg has communicated national measures partially transposing the provisions of the directive as well as a draft piece of legislation which the Commission is still waiting to adopt. Belgium has not communicated the measures adopted for the Walloon area of Belgium and the measures notified for Brussels seem incomplete. In spite of the reasoned opinion which was sent to them, these two countries have not taken the necessary steps to remedy, within two months, their shortcomings and to comply with community law.
In a communiqué, Margot Wallström, Commissioner for the Environnement, states: «the IPPC directive marks considerable progress in environmental legislation on industrially-produced pollution. I ask right now the Member States which are taking a long time to transpose it into their national law to do everything they can to complete the necessary legislative work as quickly as possible».