Luxembourg, 17/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Justice has confirmed the Commission's condemnation of Austria for failing to correctly transpose Council directive 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild bird habitats. The case is part of a stepping up of such procedures by the Commission against various Member States which do not comply with European legislation on the protection of wild birds.
Directive 79/409/EEC concerns the protection of wild birds and is the basis (along with directive 92/43/EEC on the habitats of fauna and flora) of the European network of protected sites “Natura 2000”. The judgement made on 12 July in case C-507/04 confirms the Commission's condemnation of Austria, specifically for failure to correctly apply the elements of directive 79/409 on the regulation of hunting and the protection of certain species in several Länder (regions) of the country. The Länder have a certain level of legislative independence which poses problems for the federal authorities. “We have been aware of the problem for some time” explains Dr Gerard Popp, spokesperson for the Austrian ministry of agriculture and the environment, “but our hands are tied, because under the Constitution the Länder are responsible for managing their environment. This is the problem with a federal system”. The Austrian State thereby finds itself responsible before the European Court for the behaviour of its Länder over which it effectively has no authority, a problem which it intends to look into.
In a series of separate cases launched on 27 June, the Commission has referred Germany, Austria and Poland to the European Court for failing to adequately designate the “special protection areas” (SPAs) for wild birds as envisaged under directive 79/409. Spain has already been condemned for a similar failure in a judgement made the same week (EUROPE 9457). On the same day all of the other Member States with the exception of Estonia received first written warning concerning insufficient implementation of the SPAs. Furthermore, Slovakia received an official warning from the Commission for authorising forestry activities in a protected area, as did Malta for endorsing spring hunting of turtle doves.
Konstantin Kreiser, the EU policy manager of the NGO BirdLife International in Brussels, welcomed the Commission's actions but regretted “that so many governments need to be forced to turn their nice words into action. We hope the affected Member States will now speed up their efforts to comply with EU legislation.” (cd)