Case C-516/07: Action brought on 22 November 2007 — Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Spain
Date: 2007-11-22
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: EU policy, European Commission, Spain, action for failure to fulfil an obligation, disclosure of information, freshwater

C 37/8

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

9.2.2008

Action brought on 22 November 2007 — Commission of
the European Communities v Kingdom of Spain

Action brought on 22 November 2007 — Commission of
the European Communities v Federal Republic of Germany

(Case C-516/07)

(2008/C 37/09)

Language of the case: Spanish

Parties

(Case C-518/07)

(2008/C 37/10)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: Commission of the European Communities (repre-
sented by: C. Docksey and C. Ladenburger, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Federal Republic of Germany

Applicant: Commission of the European Communities (repre-
sented by: S.Pardo Quintillán, Agent)

Form of order sought

Defendant: Kingdom of Spain

Form of order sought

for

the

application of

— declare that, by failing to identify all the competent authori-
rules of Directive
ties
2000/60/EC (1) of
the
Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for
Community action in the field of water policy, the Kingdom
of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 3(2)
and (7) of the directive; and

the European Parliament and of

the

— by failing to communicate to the Commission the list of all
the competent authorities, the Kingdom of Spain has failed
to fulfil
its obligations under Article 3(8) of Directive
2000/60/EC;

— order Kingdom of Spain to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The Commission's application is based on Article 3 of Directive
2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community
action in the field of water policy.

According to Article 3(2) and (7) and (8), the Member States are
required to identify the competent authorities for the application
of the rules of Directive 2000/60/EC and to communicate the
list of competent authorities to the Commission within a
prescribed period.

(1) OJ 2000 L 327, p. 1.

the

its obligations under

— declare that the Federal Republic of Germany has failed to
fulfil
second sentence of
Article 28(1) of Directive 95/46/EC (1), by making the super-
visory authorities responsible for the monitoring of data
processing within the private sector in the Länder Baden-
Württemberg,
Bremen,
Berlin,
Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Nieder-
sachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland,
Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thüringen
subject to State supervision and thereby incorrectly trans-
posing the requirement of ‘complete independence’ of the
data protection supervisory authorities;

Brandenburg,

Bayern,

— order Federal Republic of Germany to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The second sentence of Article 28(1) of Directive 95/46/EC of
the European Parliament and of the Council puts Member States
under an obligation to make ‘one or more public authorities’
responsible for monitoring ‘the application … of the provisions
adopted by the Member States pursuant to this Directive’, that is to
say, of provisions on data protection. The second sentence of
Article 28(1) of the directive requires the ‘complete independence’
of
its
the supervisory authorities responsible. By virtue of
wording, the provision provides that the supervisory authorities
are not to be subject to influence from other authorities or
the
the State administration;
from outside of
Member States must therefore preclude external influence from
being exercised on the decisions of the supervisory authorities
and on the implementation thereof. The wording ‘complete’ inde-
pendence implies not only that there should be no dependence
on any party, but also that there should be no dependence in
any respect whatsoever.

the rules of

It is thus incompatible with the second sentence of Article 28(1)
of the directive to make the supervisory authorities which are
responsible for the monitoring of data processing in the private
sector subject to technical, legal or administrative supervision by
the State, as has occurred in all 16 Länder of
the Federal
Republic of Germany. As the legislation of every Land makes the
supervisory authority subject to those three types of supervision
in varying combinations, the legislation of every Land consti-
tutes a failure by the Federal Republic of Germany to fulfil the
the
obligation in the second sentence of Article 28(1) of