New purge on EU law-breakers

Date: 27/02/1997

By Rory Watson

FOUR EU governments are in the European Commission's sights as it prepares to launch the second round of its attack on member states which defy rulings from the Court of Justice.

Commission officials are preparing almost a dozen more legal cases against governments which have failed to implement EU laws fully at home despite judgements against them in the ECJ.

The Commission is examining the possibility of levying fines on France, Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg for their persistent failure to comply with rulings from the Luxembourg-based judges on a range of environmental, single market and social legislation.

The latest batch of cases under investigation confirms the Commission's determination to use its new Maastricht Treaty powers to press for financial penalties on recalcitrant member states as a lever to ensure that EU law is applied evenly throughout the Union.

At the end of January, the Commission launched five test cases against Germany and Italy for similar offences.

The majority of the new cases - six - involve another of the Union's largest members, France.

The Commission is currently examining the French government's failure to implement properly EU legislation on the protection of wild birds, the conservation of fish stocks, the freedom to provide services (two cases), equal access for men and women to employment, and defective products.

A further three cases are being considered against Belgium, involving problems over the transfer of pension rights, discrimination between men and women on access to certain social security benefits, and the failure to tackle the environmental hazards of slurry.

Greece is being targeted for not implementing EU waste legislation on Crete, and Luxembourg for its failure fully to apply legislation on the freedom to provide services.

The Germans and Italians are already facing the prospect of daily fines ranging from 26,400 ecu to 264,000 ecu if they continue to drag their feet over EU environmental rules on issues ranging from the quality of groundwater to the disposal of waste.

A similar fate faces the four other member states now being targeted as Commission officials prepare 11 separate legal actions and consider what level of fines to recommend to the Court, which makes the final decision on the severity of penalties.

Recommendations on the size of the fine in each case are determined by the gravity and duration of the offence and by the member state's relative economic weight in the Union.

The latest cases may be examined by the Commission at its first meeting after the Easter break but, given the complexities of preparing the legal arguments and determining the fines involved, sources indicate that a decision is unlikely to be taken until the summer.

Despite the lengthy internal procedures involved, supporters of more active use by the Commission of its power to recommend fines on member states which fail to respect the judgements of the Union's highest legal authority believe the penalties have a strong deterrent effect.

“The real value of the fines is that they act as an effective stimulus to member states to put their house in order,” explained one senior official.

Although neither Italy nor Germany have yet fully complied with the five ECJ rulings which prompted Commission calls for action, both insist that the majority of the cases will be settled in a matter of weeks.

This would be a remarkable turn around. One of the cases in which the Commission has recommended imposing a fine on Germany centres on Bonn's failure to implement fully EU legislation on the protection of wild birds despite criticism from the ECJ dating back to 1990.