Brussels, 15/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Monday the European Commission decided to pursue infringement procedures against thirteen Member States for failure to implement or for implementing incorrectly in national law various Internal Market Directives and EC Treaty obligations. The Commission will formally ask Belgium, Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Sweden and the UK to implement quickly the necessary legislation in a total of 16 cases covering Directives on copyright and exchange of securities markets information, along with the Second Postal Services Directive. The Commission has also decided to request Greece to amend its legislation in order to implement correctly the First Postal Services Directive. These requests will take the form of "reasoned opinions", the second stage of the infringement procedure under Article 226 of the EC Treaty. Should a Member State which has received a reasoned opinion fail to give a satisfactory reply within the deadline (usually two months), the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice. In addition, the Commission has decided, under Article 228 of the EC Treaty, to send further reasoned opinions requesting France and Ireland to comply immediately with judgements of the European Court of Justice, requiring France to implement EU law on product liability and Ireland to ratify the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works (Paris Act, 1971). If Paris and Dublindo not comply, the Commission can ask the Court to impose daily fines.
Copyright and related rights in the Information Society. Only Greece and Denmark met the December 2002 implementation deadline. Italy and Austria implemented the Directive in April and June 2003 respectively. The Commission has now decided to send reasoned opinions to the other eleven Member States (Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Finland, Sweden and the UK) which have not fulfilled their obligations. Most of them have stated that they will implement during 2003 and Germany will do so during July, but "the Commission, fulfilling its role as guardian of the Treaties and in order to ensure that European citizens and businesses get the benefit of the Directive as soon as possible", will pursue infringement procedures "until all Member States have written the Directive into national law".
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Act 1971). In order to ensure that nationals from one country may also enjoy protection for their works in other countries, a number of international conventions have been concluded. The most important international convention covering authors is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic works (1886). This Convention has subsequently been revised, most recently in 1971 (Paris Act). European Union and European Economic Area Member States undertook to adhere to the Paris Act before 1 January 1995, but Ireland has not done so and therefore the Commission referred it to the European Court of Justice On 19 March 2002, the Court declared that, by failing to adhere before 1 January 1995 Ireland had failed to fulfil its obligations under the EC Treaty. Ireland has still not yet adhered to the Paris Act and, therefore, has not complied with the Court's ruling. The European Commission has therefore decided to send Ireland a reasoned opinion under Article 228 of the Treaty. Should Ireland not comply within the prescribed time limits, the Commission may return to the Court and ask it to impose a fine.
Exchange of securities markets information. Directive 2000 on the exchange of securities markets information amends the provisions of several previous financial services Directives in so far as co-operation between supervisory authorities for financial services is concerned. The Directive should be implemented by 17 November 2002. Finland and Greece have not yet informed the Commission of any measures taken to do so. Therefore, the Commission has decided to send reasoned opinions to these two Member States.
Postal services. The Commission is sending reasoned opinions to Austria, France and Greece for failing to implement the Second Postal Directive of 31 December 2002 adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in June 2002 The Directive aims to further open postal services to competition in a gradual and controlled way, while allowing for the safeguarding of quality universal services (i.e the services required to be provided to all members of the public at an affordable price). Its main provisions require Member States to open certain market segments to competition in 2003 and 2006. In January 2003, the Commission sent letters of formal notice to the eight Member States that had not implemented the Directive by the agreed date. Since then, five Member States (Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal) have notified the Commission that they have written the Directive into national law. Austria, France and Greece have also begun the implementation process and Austria and France have introduced some administrative measures to partially remedy the effects of the delay. Given that this delay is already over six months, the Commission will continue the formal infringement procedures against Austria, France and Greece to help ensure that any further delay is minimised. Infringement procedures aimed at Austria, France and Greece in order to reduce all further delay to a minimum. The Commission also decided to send a reasoned opinion calling on Greece to adapt its legislation to the first postal directive. This directive, adopted in 1997, bans Member States from calling on companies to acquire an explicit decision from authorities before beginning to provide "non universal" postal services. Greece continues to call for such an explicit decision, whereas the Commission considers that this is an unwarranted barrier to the provision of postal services. Also, the directive specifies the conditions in which Member States can create a fund for compensating universal service providers for the burden that such an obligation could entail for them. The aim of these funds is to guarantee viability of the provision of the universal postal service. The Commission called on Greece to change the conditions whereby companies managing non universal services are obliged to contribute to this kind of fund, in order to make them conform to the directive.
Faulty products. The Commission has decided to send a reasoned opinion to France, after having noted that it has still not complied with the 2002 ruling by the Court of Justice despite the fact that a letter of formal notice was sent by the Commission in April 2003. With this ruling, the Court had said that the French regulation for transposition of the directive on liability in the case of faulty products was not conform to the directive.