Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2006:334
Date: 2006-05-18
Language of the case: French
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Environment
Procedure: Action for failure to fulfil obligations - successful;Action for failure to fulfil obligations - unfounded
Origin: Luxembourg

Summary of the Judgment 1. Acts of the institutions – Directives – Implementation by Member States (Art. 249, third para., EC) 2. Acts of the institutions – Directives – Implementation by Member States 3. Environment – Community action in the field of water policy – Directive 2000/60 (Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2000/60, Arts 1 and 2) 4. Actions for failure to fulfil obligations – Subject-matter of the dispute – Determination during the procedure prior to the action (Art. 226 EC) 5. Environment – Community action in the field of water policy – Directive 2000/60 – Requirement to inform and consult the public (Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2000/60, Arts 13(6), and 14) 1. It follows from the third paragraph of Article 249 EC that the implementation in domestic law of a directive does not necessarily require legislative action in each Member State. Thus, it is not always necessary formally to enact the requirements of a directive in a specific express legal provision, since the general legal context may be sufficient for implementation of a directive, depending on its content. In particular, the existence of general principles of constitutional or administrative law may render superfluous transposition by specific legislative or regulatory measures provided, however, that those principles actually ensure the full application of the directive by the national authorities and that, where the relevant provision of the directive seeks to create rights for individuals, the legal situation arising from those principles is sufficiently precise and clear and that the persons concerned are put in a position to know the full extent of their rights and, where appropriate, to be able to rely on them before the national courts. (see para. 34) 2. A provision which concerns only the relations between the Member States and the Commission does not, in principle, have to be transposed. However, given that the Member States are obliged to ensure that Community law is fully complied with, it is open to the Commission to demonstrate that compliance with a provision of a directive governing those relations requires the adoption of specific transposing measures in national law. (see para. 35) 3. Neither Articles 1 and 2 of Directive 2000/60, establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, which set out the objectives which it seeks to achieve and the definitions on which it is based, nor any other part of it show that the Member States, with a view to meeting the requirements of the directive, are under a duty to adopt such a framework legislation in order to implement its provisions correctly. It is true that adopting framework legislation may be an appropriate, or more straightforward, method of implementing the directive, since it may provide the competent authorities with clear legal bases, in a single document, for drawing up the various measures laid down by the directive as regards water and whose implementation is to be spread over a period of time. The adoption of such framework legislation may also facilitate the work of the Commission, which has to ensure that the obligations imposed on Member States by the directive are complied with. Nevertheless, adopting framework legislation is not the only way in which Member States may ensure that the directive is fully applied and provide for an organised and coherent system for complying with the objectives laid down under the directive. (see paras 46-48) 4. If, in the course of infringement proceedings, the pre‑litigation procedure has attained its objective of protecting the rights of the Member State in question, that Member State, which did not inform the Commission during the pre-litigation procedure that the directive should be regarded as having already been implemented in its domestic law, cannot complain that the Commission has extended or altered the subject-matter of the action as defined by the pre-litigation procedure. The Commission may, after alleging that a Member State has failed to transpose a directive at all, specify in its reply that the implementation pleaded for the first time by the Member State concerned in its defence is in any event incorrect or incomplete so far as certain provisions of the directive are concerned, as such a complaint is necessarily included in the complaint alleging a complete failure to transpose and is subsidiary to that complaint. (see para. 56) 5. Article 14 of Directive 2000/60, establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, is intended to confer on individuals and interested parties a right to be actively involved in the implementation of the directive and, in particular, in the production, review and updating of the river basin management plans. The lack of any measures of transposition in domestic law does not ensure compliance with the obligation that the national measures of transposition should render the deadline laid down in Article 13(6) of the directive legally binding on the competent national authorities and enable individuals to ascertain, well in advance, the full extent of their rights under the procedures provided for in Article 14(1) and (2) of the directive. (see paras 80-81)