Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2003:138
Date: 2003-03-06
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: Portugal

Summary of the Judgment 
Acts of the institutions — Directives — Implementation by the Member States — Need 
for full transposition — Provision requiring monitoring reports to be drawn up and 
forwarded to the Commission — Provision not necessarily requiring specific implement­
ing measures 
(Council Directive 79/409, Art. 12(1)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-72/02 
Each of the Member States to which a 
directive is addressed is obliged to adopt, 
within the framework of its national legal 
system, all the measures necessary to ensure 
that the directive is fully effective, in 
accordance with the objective it pursues. 
In order to concern only the relations 
between Member States and the Commis­
sion Article 12(1) of Directive 79/409 on 
the conservation of wild birds, which 
requires the Member States to draw up 
every three years a report on the imple­
mentation of national provisions taken 
under that directive and forward it to the 
Commission so that it can check that the 
directive has been complied with by the 
Member States, need not necessarily 
require the adoption of specific implement­
ing measures in national law. 
(see paras 19-20) 
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