CELEX: 62020CN0227
Language: en
Date: 2020-06-01 00:00:00
Title: Case C-227/20: Action brought on 1 June 2020 — European Commission v Italian Republic

3.8.2020   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 255/13
            
         
      Action brought on 1 June 2020 — European Commission v Italian Republic
      (Case C-227/20)
      (2020/C 255/16)
      Language of the case: Italian
      
         Parties
      
      
         Applicant: European Commission (represented by: R. Trico and G. Gattinara, acting as Agents)
      
         Defendant: Italian Republic
      
         Form of order sought
      
      The applicant claims that the Court should:
      
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                  declare that, by failing to adopt the rules on penalties applicable to infringements of Articles 4 and 7 of Regulation No 511/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on compliance measures for users from the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization in the Union, (1) by failing to adopt all the measures necessary to ensure that those rules are applied and that the penalties provided for are effective, proportionate and dissuasive, and by failing to notify the Commission of those rules on penalties by 11 June 2015, the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 11 of Regulation No 511/2014;
               
            
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                  order the Italian Republic to pay the costs.
               
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments
      
      The Commission claims that the measures specifying penalties for infringement of Articles 4 and 7 of Regulation No 511/2014 have not yet been adopted by the Italian Republic, despite the fact that, first, those measures should have been laid down in the national legislation of the Member States since 11 June 2014 and, second, those measures should have been followed by the Member States implementing ‘all the measures necessary to ensure that they are applied’, as stated in the last sentence of Article 11(1) of Regulation No 511/2014.
      Furthermore, the infringement of Article 11 of that regulation also concerns the Italian Republic’s failure to notify the Commission of the measures on penalties. In that regard, according to the final paragraph of Article 11 of Regulation No 511/2014, the Italian Republic was obliged to notify the Commission of the rules ‘referred to in paragraph 1’ of that provision, that is to say the ‘rules on penalties applicable to infringements of Articles 4 and 7’ by 11 June 2015.
      
         (1)  OJ 2014 L 150, p. 59.