Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Approximation of laws — Disposal of waste oils — Directive 75/439 — Obligation on the Member States to adopt legislation under which the issue to operators of the requisite permits is expressly conditional upon compliance with the conditions laid down by the directive — (Council Directive 75/439, as amended by Directive 87/101, Art. 6(2))

2. Actions for failure to fulfil obligations — Subject-matter of the dispute — Subject-matter determined in the course of the pre-litigation procedure — Adjustment of the subject-matter because of an amendment to Community law — Permissible — Conditions — (Art. 226 EC)

3. Approximation of laws — Disposal of waste oils — Directive 75/439 — Obligation on the Member States to provide for periodical inspections of operators and the review of permits issued — (Council Directive 75/439, as amended by Directive 87/101, Art. 13)

4. Approximation of laws — Disposal of waste oils — Directive 75/439 — Obligation on the Member States periodically to convey information concerning matters learnt from application of the directive — Scope — (Council Directive 75/439, as amended by Directive 87/101, Art. 17)

Summary

1. In order for Article 6(2) of Directive 75/439 on the disposal of waste oils to be implemented correctly, national legislation must expressly require, as a sine qua non for issue of a permit to use waste oils as fuel or to regenerate them, respectively, the adoption of all appropriate health protection measures and use of the best technology possible where the cost is not excessive.

see paras 77-79, 89, 106-111, 213

2. The proper conduct of the pre-litigation procedure laid down in Article 226 EC constitutes an essential guarantee required by the Treaty not only in order to protect the rights of the Member State concerned, but also to ensure that any contentious procedure will have a clearly defined dispute as its subject-matter. It is only on the basis of a properly conducted pre-litigation procedure that the contentious procedure before the Court will enable the latter to judge whether the Member State has in fact failed to fulfil the specific obligations which the Commission alleges it has breached.

Thus, although the claims as stated in the application cannot in principle be extended beyond the infringements alleged in the letter of formal notice and in the operative part of the reasoned opinion, it is none the less the case that, where Community law is amended during the course of the pre-litigation procedure, the Commission has standing to seek a declaration that a Member State has failed to fulfil obligations which were created in the initial version of a directive, subsequently amended or repealed, and which were maintained in force under the new provisions. Conversely, the subject-matter of the dispute cannot be extended to obligations arising under the new version of a directive which do not correspond to those arising under the previous version of that directive, as otherwise it would constitute a breach of the essential procedural requirements of infringement proceedings.

see paras 133-135

3. In order for Article 13 of Directive 75/439 on the disposal of waste oils to be implemented correctly, national legislation must require the competent authorities to carry out periodical inspections of undertakings which regenerate waste oils or use them as fuel and provide that at the time of the inspections the state of technical development and/or of the environment will be examined with a view to revising, where necessary, permits granted to those undertakings.

see paras 163, 166-167, 172, 183-186, 213

4. Article 17 of Directive 75/439 on the disposal of waste oils is intended to enable both the Commission and the Member States to be informed on a periodic basis of the technical knowledge acquired by each of those States and of experience gained and results obtained through the application of the directive in the Community. The fact that a Member State has not acquired new technical knowledge over a certain period also constitutes a useful piece of information with which the Commission and the other Member States should become acquainted by virtue of Article 17 of the directive, in particular as that article does not provide for any exception to the obligation to convey the information to which it refers. Nor can compliance with the obligation laid down in Article 17 to convey information depend on the assessment made by each Member State as to whether or not it possesses knowledge worth being conveyed, as otherwise the effectiveness of that provision would be prejudiced.

see paras 202, 204-205, 213