CELEX: C2002/118/33
Language: en
Date: 2002-05-18 00:00:00
Title: Case C-103/02: Action brought on 20 March 2002 by the Commission of the European Communities against the Italian Republic

C 118/20                EN                    Official Journal of the European Communities                                        18.5.2002
Action brought on 19 March 2002 by the Commission of                     The Commission therefore concludes that the Italian Govern-
  the European Communities against the Italian Republic                  ment has failed to implement Directive 92/51 in respect of
                                                                         access to those professions.
                          (Case C-101/02)
                                                                         (1) OJ L 209 of 24.7.1992, p. 25.
                                                                         (2) OJ L 19 of 24.1.1989, p. 16.
                          (2002/C 118/32)
An action against the Italian Republic was brought before the
Court of Justice of the European Communities on 19 March
2002 by the Commission of the European Communities,
represented by Maria Patakia and Antonio Aresu, acting as                Action brought on 20 March 2002 by the Commission of
Agents.                                                                    the European Communities against the Italian Republic
                                                                                                   (Case C-103/02)
The applicant claims that the Court should:
                                                                                                   (2002/C 118/33)
—     declare that, by not having implemented the provisions
      of Council Directive 92/51/EEC (1) of 18 June 1992 on a
      second general system for the recognition of professional
      education and training to supplement Directive 89/48/
      EEC (2) in relation to the professional activities of athletes,    An action against the Italian Republic was brought before the
      coaches, technical and sporting directors and athletics            Court of Justice of the European Communities on 20 March
      trainers, the Italian Republic has failed to comply with its       2002 by the Commission of the European Communities,
      obligations under that directive.                                  represented by Richard Wainwright and Roberto Amorosi,
                                                                         acting as Agents.
—     order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.
                                                                         The applicant claims that the Court should:
                                                                         —     declare that, by adopting the decree of 5 February 1998
                                                                               on the identification of non-hazardous waste covered by
Pleas in law and main arguments
                                                                               the simplified recovery procedures under Articles 31 and
                                                                               33 of Legislative Decree No 55 of 5 February 1997
                                                                               which,
It is apparent from an examination of the provisions of Law
No 91/81 that the activities of athlete, coach, technical and                  a.    contrary to the first and second indents of the first
sporting director and athletics trainer are regulated professions                    paragraph of Article 11 and Article 10 of Directive
in Italy within the meaning of Directive 92/51. Consequently,                        75/442/EEC (1), as amended, exempts establishments
when the competent Italian authorities receive an application                        and undertakings which recover non-hazardous
for recognition of professional education and training in                            waste from seeking authorisation, without such
respect of those activities they are required to examine that                        exemption being subject to the following require-
application in accordance with the rules laid down by that                           ments: (1) prior setting of a maximum quantity of
directive.                                                                           waste; (2) compliance with the conditions laid down
                                                                                     in Article 4 of Directive 75/442/EEC, as amended,
                                                                                     regarding the quantity of waste processed by the
Article 13 of Decree-Law No 319/94 lists the authorities                             establishments exempt from authorisation,
responsible for the recognition of professional education and
training, providing in particular at subparagraph (a) that the                 b.    contrary to the first indent of Article 11(1) of
minister responsible for supervising the professions referred to                     Directive 75/442/EEC, as amended, does not define
in Article 2(a) is competent to rule on applications for                             precisely the kinds of waste covered by the exemp-
recognition in accordance with annex C of that decree. The                           tion from authorisation and thus, also contrary to
relevant annex lists a number of professions and the ministers                       Article 3 of Directive 91/689/EEC (2), in certain
competent to examine applications for recognition of qualifi-                        cases, as a result of the lack of clarity and precision,
cations concerning those professions. However the only sport-                        allows establishments or undertakings which
ing professions listed are those of ski instructor, sailing                          recover certain kinds of hazardous waste to be
instructor, mountain guide and potholing guide with no                               exempted from seeking authorisation on the basis
reference to athlete, coach, technical and sporting director and                     of the less stringent requirements provided for in
athletics trainer.                                                                   respect of non-hazardous waste,
 ---pagebreak--- 18.5.2002                EN                      Official Journal of the European Communities                                       C 118/21
      c.    contrary to Articles 9 and 11, which refer to                   B.    Failure to indicate or erroneous indi-
            Article 1(e) to (f) of Directive 75/442/EEC, as                       cation of the types of waste covered by
            amended, and to Annex IIA and IIB, as amended by                      the authorisation exemption
            Decision 96/350/EC (3), defines some of the disposal
            operations as ‘environmental recovery’ operations               So far as concerns the types of waste in respect of which no
            and thus allows establishments and undertakings                 authorisation for the purposes of the first indent of
            which deal with disposal other than disposal of                 Article 11(1) is required, some parts of the technical provisions
            waste on the site where it is produced to be exempt             contained in Annexes 1 and 2 to the Italian decree define the
            from the obligation to seek authorisation, as if they           types of waste so vaguely that some hazardous types of waste
            were carrying out recovery operations, the Italian              could be classified with non-hazardous waste, thus allowing
            Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under             establishments and undertakings processing it to be exempt
            Articles 1, 9, 10 and 11 of Directive 75/442/EEC, as            from seeking authorisation by relying on the less stringent
            amended by Directive 91/156/EEC (4), and Article 3              criteria laid down for non-hazardous waste.
            of Directive 91/689/EEC; and
                                                                            In other cases, the codes of the European Waste Catalogue
—     Order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.                          (EWC), adopted by way of Commission Decision 94/3/EC (5),
                                                                            are not cited (for example 5.9) or, where they are cited, they
                                                                            do not correspond to the definition set out in the technical
Pleas in law and main arguments                                             provisions.
A. S p e c i f i c a t i o n o f t h e q u a n t i t i e s                  C.    Environmental recovery operations
The Commission’s contention is that Article 7 of the decree,                The Commission therefore takes the view that the environmen-
in laying down the maximum quantities of waste applicable to                tal recovery operations described in Article 5 of the decree are
recovery operations which may be exempted from the obli-                    in fact disposal operations.
gation to seek authorisation under Articles 9 and 10 of the
directive, does not mention an absolute maximum quantity,                   This means that undertakings and establishments which carry
by reference to the type of establishment or undertaking, but               out, pursuant to Article 5 of the Italian decree, environmental
a relative maximum quantity which varies according to the                   recovery operations which are in fact waste disposal operations
annual output of the plant at which the operation is carried                may be exempted from seeking the authorisation provided for
out.                                                                        at Article 9 of the directive beyond the limits laid down
                                                                            for undertakings and establishments which carry out waste
The failure to specify beforehand the maximum quantity of                   disposal operations, which may be exempted only on condition
waste below which disposal or recovery operations may be                    that they dispose of their own waste on the site where it is
exempt from seeking authorisation gives rise to the result                  produced.
that any undertaking or establishment, even if it processes
enormous quantities of waste, may seek such exemption which                 ( 1) OJ 1975 L 194, p. 39.
not only empties the ordinary procedure of any practical                    ( 2) OJ 1991 L 377, p. 20.
usefulness but also makes it impossible to check whether the                ( 3) OJ 1996 L 135, p. 32.
conditions laid down in the second indent of Article 11(1), in              ( 4) OJ 1991 L 78, p. 32.
conjunction with Article 4 thereof, have been complied with.                ( 5) OJ 1994 L 5, p. 15.