Important legal notice

61998C0401

European Court reports 1999 Page I-05543

Opinion of the Advocate-General

Facts and procedure

2. Article 12(1) of the Directive, which was adopted on the basis of Article 100a of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 95 EC), provides that `Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary for them to comply with [the] Directive no later than 30 months after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities`.

3. In its application, the Commission stated that it had not received any communication from the Greek authorities concerning the adoption of the measures needed to transpose the Directive into Greek law, and that it had no information from other sources from which it could conclude that such measures had been brought into force. That being the case, on 9 September 1997, the Commission sent the Greek Government, in accordance with the procedure laid down in the first paragraph of Article 169 of the Treaty, a letter of formal notice charging it with its failure to fulfil its obligation to implement the Directive and calling upon it to submit its observations, if any.

5. On 16 January 1998, having received no communication from the Greek authorities regarding the adoption of the measures in question, the Commission sent those authorities a reasoned opinion charging them with failure to fulfil their obligations under the Directive and giving them a period of two months in which to comply with the Directive.

6. In view of the position thus adopted by the Greek authorities, the Commission concluded that they had not transposed the Directive into national law and therefore brought the present action against them.

The failure to implement the Directive

It is clear, therefore, that the Greek Government has not adopted the measures required to implement the Directive within the period laid down in Article 12(1) thereof and that, in any event, it has not communicated to the Commission the adoption of such measures. Furthermore, after expressly admitting its own failure to fulfil its obligations, the Greek Government has failed to provide any justification for such failure. It hardly needs to be added that the mere fact of preparing a draft decree, the text of which has not even been placed before the Court, cannot in any way justify the inertia of the Greek Government.

Costs

Conclusion

10. In light of the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court should:

(1) declare that, by failing to adopt the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to implement Directive 94/47/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 26 October 1994 on the protection of purchasers in respect of certain aspects of contracts relating to the purchase of the right to use immovable properties on a timeshare basis, the Hellenic Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive and Article 189 of the EC Treaty (now Article 249 EC);

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

(1) - OJ 1994 L 280, p. 83.