Brussels, 22/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission decided on 20 July to remind Greece of its obligations in nine cases of failure to comply with EU environment law.
The Commission has sent Athens a letter of formal notice warning that it must comply with a 2003 ruling of the Court of Justice. The Court had found Greece guilty of not having correctly eliminated electrical equipment containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs are industrial chemicals that were once widely used as a flame retardant but which cause cancer. In three other cases, the Commission will refer Greece to the Court after Greece ignored its earlier warnings. These three cases involve unsafe handling of sludge from a waste water plant in Psitallia near Athens; an illegal landfill on the Natural 2000 site of Prassiano Farragi on Crete, where there are many wild birds essentially birds of prey protected by the Wild Birds Directive; and lack of protection of a rarer viper species (Vipera schweizeri) on the island of Milos.
In five other cases, the Commission will send written warnings (formal letters of notice or reasoned opinions) to Greece for: - failure to transpose the Ozone Directive (reasoned opinion); - failure to transpose the directive establishing a system for the trade in greenhouse gas emissions (reasoned opinion); - failure to comply with the obligation to submit reports on the use of methyl bromide on commercialised crops (letter of formal notice); - failure to comply with the obligation to submit, on 31 March 2004 at the latest, a national plan for the allocation of quotas giving the total quantity of quotas that Greece intends to allocate to companies, in order to allow them to take part in the EU emission quota trading system (letter of formal notice); - and failure to comply with the obligation to keep the deadline of December 2000 for installation of wastewater treatment plants in agglomerations of over 15,000 inhabitants as stipulated by the Wastewater Directive (formal letter of notice).