Important legal notice

62000C0423

European Court reports 2002 Page I-00593

Opinion of the Advocate-General

I - Legal framework

II - Facts

5. On 3 February 1999, the European Commission had still not been informed by the Kingdom of Belgium of the measures adopted pursuant to Article 24; nor did the Commission have the information necessary to ascertain whether or not the Member State had complied with its obligation under that provision.

7. The Commission deemed the reply inadequate and therefore sent a reasoned opinion on 21 January 2000 requesting the Belgian Government to adopt the measures necessary to remedy the situation within two months from the date of its notification. The Belgian authorities replied on 5 April, enclosing the response of the Walloon Government and informing the Commission that the replies of the federal government and the other two regions would be forthcoming shortly.

10. At a bilateral meeting, held on 8 September 2000, the Belgian Government, despite its earlier view on the transposition of the directive in the Walloon Region, stated that it considered the cooperation agreement to be sufficient to ensure that effect would be given to the directive in that region.

12. As the Commission was not satisfied by the information which it had received, it concluded that it had not been notified of all the measures which were necessary to transpose the directive appropriately, officially and definitively into national law, and thus brought this action.

III - Forms of order sought and procedure before the Court of Justice

13. The Commission is seeking a declaration from the Court of Justice that the Kingdom of Belgium has infringed the directive in that it failed to bring into force the measures necessary to transpose the directive into national law, or, at least, to inform the Commission of its implementation.

14. In the defence, the Kingdom of Belgium states that, pursuant to paragraph 3(b) of Article 92A of the Special Law of 8 August 1980 on institutional reforms, in order to transpose the directive, the federal government and the three regions were required to enter into a cooperation agreement, signed on 21 June 1999 and published in the Moniteur belge on 12 October 2000.

15. Furthermore, in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 92A, that agreement would not take full effect until it had been approved by all the parties, which the Walloon Region did on 16 December 1999, the Flemish Region on 17 July 2000, and the Brussels-Capital Region on 20 July 2000.

16. The Belgian Government stated in the defence that, at federal level, the bill ratifying the agreement was currently passing through parliament and that, when the bill was adopted, the Court of Justice would be notified. In the rejoinder, the Kingdom of Belgium stated that the bill in question had been approved by the Senate on 15 of March 2001 and passed to the Chambre des députés the following day, adding that the Court would be informed when the bill became law.

17. In view of the foregoing, the defendant Member State submits, both in the defence and in the rejoinder, that the Commission's application has become devoid of purpose.

18. On 19 June 2001, the Belgian Government's agent lodged at the Court a copy of the Law of 22 May 2001 approving the cooperation agreement, together with a letter addressed to the Commission to the effect that the action should be withdrawn in the light of the aforementioned law.

19. By letter of 23 July, the Commission informed the Court that it did not intend to withdraw the action because, in its opinion, the cooperation agreement fails to give proper effect to Articles 12, 13(5) and 16 of the directive.

IV - The infringement

21. The defendant Member State has altered to some extent the line of its defence in the judicial stage vis-à-vis the arguments it put forward in the pre-litigation stage. In the pre-ligation stage, in addition to the cooperation agreement, it cited certain regional measures relating to activities for which an environmental authorisation is required. In these proceedings, however, the Kingdom of Belgium's defence has centred exclusively on the agreement between the federal government and the three regions, without any reference to the aforementioned measures, thereby implicitly admitting that the agreement is not sufficient to fulfil the requirements of the directive, which is precisely the Commission's claim. The case before the Court of Justice is restricted to the main head of claim relating only to the cooperation agreement.

22. The directive required the Member States to bring into force, by 3 February 1999, the measures necessary to transpose into their domestic legal systems the obligations imposed thereunder, and to notify the European Commission when they had done so.

V - Costs

24. Since the Commission's application must be upheld, the defendant must be ordered to pay the costs, in accordance with Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure.

VI - Conclusion

25. In view of the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court of Justice should uphold this action and declare that, by not bringing into force, within the period laid down in Article 24, the requisite laws, regulations and administrative provisions, the Kingdom of Belgium has failed to fulfil its obligations under Council Directive 96/82/EC of 9 December 1996 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances and order the defendant Member State to pay the costs.