26.1.2008

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 22/32

(Case C-510/07)

(2008/C 22/58)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Commission of the European Communities (represented by: G. Rozet and B. Schima, Agents)

Defendant: Kingdom of Belgium

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—declare that, by failing to adopt all such laws, regulations or administrative provisions as may be appropriate to maintain within the Community at all times the level of stocks of petroleum products in the second category of petroleum products listed in Article 2, the Kingdom of Belgium has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 1(1) of Council Directive 68/414/EEC of 20 December 1968 imposing an obligation on Member States of the EEC to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products (1);

—order the Kingdom of Belgium to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By its action, the Commission complains that the defendant has frequently not complied with the obligation to stock petroleum products under Directive 68/414/EEC, as amended and then codified by Council Directive 2006/67/EC of 24 July 2006 (2), as regards the products in the second category under that directive, namely gas oil, diesel oil, kerosene and jet-fuel of the kerosene type. The Commission points out, particularly, in that regard, that a sometimes considerable discrepancy exists between the figures relating to internal consumption of the products in question provided by the defendant in its monthly returns and the data available to the Commission via Eurostat.

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(1) OJ English Special Edition, Series I, Chapter 1968 II, p. 586.

(2) OJ 2006 L 217, p. 8.