Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:307
Date: 1998-06-18
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Provisional data;Environment;Approximation of laws
Procedure: Action for failure to fulfil obligations - successful
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgmen t 
Environment — Water pollution — Directive 76/464 — Obligation to adopt programmes to 
reduce pollution caused by certain dangerous substances and to communicate them to the Com­
mission — Scope — Failure to provide relevant basic information — Infringement of Article 5 of 
the Treaty 
(EC Treaty, Art. 5; Council Directive 76/464, Arts 7(1) and (6)) 
'Pollution of the waters', which the pro­
grammes referred to in Article 7(1) of Direc­
tive 76/464 are intended to reduce, is defined 
in Article 1(2)(e) of the directive as 'the dis­
charge by man, directly or indirectly, of 
substances or energy into the aquatic envi­
ronment, the results of which are such as to 
cause hazards to human health, harm to living 
resources and to aquatic eco-systems, damage 
to amenities or interference with other legiti-
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SUMMARY — CASE C-285/96 
mate uses of water'. The obligation to estab­
lish programmes under Article 7(1) therefore 
extends to cover water affected by such waste. 
Furthermore, the obligation imposed by 
Article 7(6) of the directive to communicate 
the programmes and the results of their imple­
mentation to the Commission only relates to 
programmes which have already been estab­
lished. Therefore, failure by a Member State 
to provide the Commission with the infor­
mation requested by it on the level of water 
pollution in that State in order to enable the 
Commission to establish the extent of that 
State's obligations under Article 7 of the direc­
tive constitutes infringement of Article 5 of 
the Treaty. 
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