CELEX: C2007/211/22
Language: en
Date: 2007-09-08 00:00:00
Title: Case C-263/07: Action brought on 1 June 2007 — Commission of the European Communities v Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

8.9.2007   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 211/12
            
         Action brought on 1 June 2007 — Commission of the European Communities v Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
   (Case C-263/07)
   (2007/C 211/22)
   Language of the case: French
   Parties
   
      Applicant: Commission of the European Communities (represented by: A. Alcover San Pedro and J.-B. Laignelot, acting as Agents)
   
      Defendant: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
   Form of order sought
   
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               Declare that, by failing correctly to transpose Articles 9(4) and 13(1) of Council Directive 96/61/EC of 24 September 1996 concerning integrated pollution prevention and control (1) and Annex I thereto, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive;
            
         
               —
            
            
               order the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to pay the costs.
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments
   The Commission raises three complaints in support of its action.
   In its first complaint, it alleges, firstly, that the defendant incorrectly transposed Article 9(4) of Directive 96/61 in that it supplemented the — correct — definition of ‘best available techniques’ with a comment relating to the ‘excessive costs’ of those techniques which does not appear in the Directive. Although the Directive does indeed stipulate that the best available techniques imply techniques perfected on a scale which permits their application, in the context of the industrial sector concerned, in economically and technically viable conditions, it does not permit the systematic exclusion of techniques whose applicability and availability would entail costs excessive by reference to establishments of average size and economically healthy in the same sector or a similar sector. Such precise requirements would go beyond what is laid down by the Directive in that regard.
   By its second complaint, the Commission then alleges that the defendant reduced the scope of the obligation to reconsider or update the permit conditions, laid down in Article 13(1) of the Directive, since, according to the terms of the national transposing provisions, those conditions are to be reconsidered only in three particular situations or where it is necessary, for which ‘appropriate reasons’ are to be given. Those terms are, once again, more restrictive than those of the Directive, which merely refers to periodic reconsideration and to updating ‘where necessary’ of the permit conditions.
   By its third complaint, the Commission alleges, finally, that the defendant incorrectly transposed Annex I to the Directive since the national transposing measures refer to ‘boilers with a rated thermal input exceeding 50 MW’ and not, as in category 1.1 in that Annex, to ‘combustion installations with a rated thermal input exceeding 50 MW’. That category is wider than that of simple boilers.
   
      (1)  OJ 1996 L 257, p. 26.