Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:317
Date: 1998-06-25
Language of the case: Spanish
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Environment;Approximation of laws;Pollution
Procedure: Action for failure to fulfil obligations - successful
Origin: Spain

SUMMARY — CASE C-214/96 
1. A Member State may not plead provisions, 
practices or circumstances existing in its 
internal legal system in order to justify a 
failure to comply with the obligations and 
time-limits laid down in a directive. 
2. In an action under Article 169 of the 
Treaty, the question whether a Member 
State has failed to fulfil its obligations must 
be determined by reference to the situa­
tion prevailing in the Member State at the 
end of the period laid down in the rea­
soned opinion, and subsequent changes 
cannot be taken into account by the Court. 
3. The programmes which the Member States 
are required to establish, under Article 7 
of Directive 76/464, in order to reduce 
pollution of inland surface water and ter­
ritorial waters by the substances within 
List II in the annex to the directive must 
be specific and include, in accordance with 
Article 7(3), quality objectives with regard 
to the waters concerned. Such programmes 
are an instrument the purpose of which is 
to define procedures, within a consistent 
framework, for the protection of waters 
from pollution by the substances in List 
II, enabling in particular a comparative 
assessment to be made of the various 
schemes in force for the protection of 
waters in the Member States. 
Accordingly, legislation which constitutes 
only a series of ad hoc legislative measures 
which cannot amount to an organised and 
coordinated system of quality objectives 
relating to specific watercourses or bodies 
of standing water cannot be considered to 
be a programme within the meaning of 
Article 7 of the directive. 
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