Important legal notice

61999C0395

European Court reports 2000 Page I-11155

Opinion of the Advocate-General

Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with:

(a) the following provisions provided for in Article 1:

point (4): Article 6(1), Article 9d(2), Article 9e(3), Article 9f, Article 9g, Article 9h, Article 9i, Article 9j, Article 9n, Article 9o,

points 10, 12, 19 and 20,

on 1 April 1998;

(b) the other provisions of this Directive by 1 October 1999.

They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof.

7. The Commission therefore brought the present proceedings against the Italian Republic on 11 October 1999.

The Commission claims that the Court should:

(1) declare that, by failing to adopt the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with

(a) Council Directive 96/51/EC of 23 July 1996 amending Directive 70/524/EEC concerning additives in feedingstuffs and

(b) Council Directive 96/93/EC of 17 December 1996 on the certification of animals and animal products,

or in any event by failing to communicate such provisions, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty and those directives;

(2) order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.

8. The Commission points out that, under the third paragraph of Article 189 of the EC Treaty (now Article 249 EC) and Article 5 of the EC Treaty (now Article 10 EC), the Member States are required to take whatever measures are necessary to transpose the directives into national law before the expiry of the period prescribed for that purpose, and to inform the Commission of such measures immediately. According to the Commission, those periods expired without the Italian Republic having informed it of the provisions to transpose the directives in question into national law.

10. In the light of the grounds of the Commission's application, the latter must be construed as referring, in respect of Directive 96/51, only to the failure to transpose the provisions mentioned in Article 2(1)(a). The intention to bring a more far-reaching action cannot be imputed to the Commission since, on the one hand, at the time of bringing the action a possible Treaty infringement would have been only 11 days old and the pre-litigation procedure referred to expressly relates only to that part of the directive.

11. On that construction the action is well founded. On the material date for the purposes of the infringement proceedings when the period of two months from 11 December 1998 prescribed in the reasoned opinion expired the grievance which is the subject of the application had indisputably not yet been remedied, even taking into account any extensions of the period on account of delays in the post. The Italian Republic should therefore be declared to have failed to fulfil its obligations, as claimed in the application.

12. The appropriate order as to costs follows from Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure.

13. I therefore propose that the Court should:

(1) declare that, by failing to adopt the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with

(a) Article 2(1)(a) of Council Directive 96/51/EC of 23 July 1996 amending Directive 70/524/EEC concerning additives in feedingstuffs and

(b) Council Directive 96/93/EC of 17 December 1996 on the certification of animals and animal products,

the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty and those directives;

(2) order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.