Commission of the European Communities v French Republic.
Date: 2003-11-20
24. Decree No 96-850 of 20 September 1996 on control of deliberate release and of the placing on t he market, for civil purposes, of products wholly or partially composed of genetically modified organisms (JORF of 27 September 1996, p. 14273) provides in Article 22:
" I. ─ Once the application is complete, the minister with responsibility for the environment shall issue to the applicant an acknowledgment of receipt stating its date of registration and shall forward the application to the Research Commission for the Release of Products derived from Biomolecular Engineering for its opinion.
II. ─ That commission shall submit its opinion to the minister with responsibility for the environment within a period of 60 days from the date on which the application is registered.
III. ─ Within 90 days from the date on which the application to place a product on the market is registered, the minister with responsibility for the environment shall either:
(a) forward the dossier to the European Commission with a favourable opinion accompanied, where appropriate, by specific conditions relating to the placing on the market of the product, informing the applicant that it has been forwarded; or
(b) inform the applicant by reasoned decision that the application is rejected.
IV. ─ If the minister with responsibility for the environment considers that additional information, specific studies or consultation are necessary to enable him to determine the application, he may extend the period prescribed in paragraph II above by the corresponding length of time.
He must in that case notify the applicant of the reasons for the extension, and of its duration, which is not taken into account when calculating the period that the minister is allowed for determining the application; where appropriate, the minister shall request the applicant to produce additional information.
"
43. It is settled case-law that the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation obtaining in the Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion and that the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, inter alia, Case C-103/00  Commission  v  Greece  [2002] ECR I-1147, paragraph 23, and Case C-323/01  Commission  v  Italy  [2002] ECR I-4711, paragraph 8).
54. The provisions of directives must be implemented with unquestionable binding force, and with the necessary specificity, precision and clarity, in order to satisfy the requirements of legal certainty. Mere administrative practices, which by their nature are alterable at will by the authorities and are not given appropriate publicity, cannot be regarded as constituting the proper fulfilment of a Member State ' s obligations flowing from Community law since they maintain, for the persons concerned, a state of uncertainty as regards the extent of their rights and obligations in a field governed by that law (see, to this effect, in particular Case C-80/92  Commission  v  Belgium  [1994] ECR I-1019, paragraph 20, Case C-151/94  Commission  v  Luxembourg  [1995] ECR I-3685, paragraph 18, and Case C-415/01  Commission  v  Belgium  [2003] ECR I-2081, paragraph 21).
55. While it is therefore essential that the legal situation resulting from national implementing measures is sufficiently precise and clear to enable the individuals concerned to know the extent of their rights and obligations, it is none the less the case that, according to the very words of the third paragraph of Article 249 EC, Member States may choose the form and methods for implementing directives which best ensure the result to be achieved by the directives, and that provision shows that the transposition of a directive into national law does not necessarily require legislative action in each Member State. The Court has thus repeatedly held that it is not always necessary formally to enact the requirements of a directive in a specific express legal provision, since the general legal context may be sufficient for implementation of a directive, depending on its content. In particular, the existence of general principles of constitutional or administrative law may render superfluous transposition by specific legislative or regulatory measures provided, however, that those principles actually ensure the full application of the directive by the national authorities and that, where the relevant provision of the directive seeks to create rights for individuals, the legal situation arising from those principles is sufficiently precise and clear and that the persons concerned are put in a position to know the full extent of their rights and obligations and, where appropriate, to be able to invoke them before the national courts (see in particular, to this effect, Case 29/84  Commission  v  Germany  [1985] ECR 1661, paragraphs 22 and 23, Case C-97/01  Commission  v  Luxembourg  [2003] ECR I-5797, paragraph 37, and Case C-233/00  Commission  v  France  [2003] ECR I-6625, paragraph 76).
66. As is apparent from paragraphs 54 and 55 of this judgment, a directive ' s transposition is not complete if it leaves a state of uncertainty as regards the extent of the rights and obligations of individuals in the field governed by the directive. Even if the word   " all"  used in the decrees implementing Law No 92-654 is to be interpreted as encompassing the information required by Article 5(4) of Directive 90/220, those decrees do not make that sufficiently clear.
68. Article 6(2) of Directive 90/220 states that the competent authority must respond in writing to the notifier within 90 days of receipt of the notification. It also provides that a positive response must indicate that the notification has been verified to be compliant with that directive and that the release may proceed, while a negative response must mention that the notification does not fulfil the conditions of the directive and that it is therefore rejected.
Arguments of the parties
92. It is apparent from the Court ' s case-law that a provision which concerns only the relations between the Member States and the Commission does not, in principle, have to be transposed. However, given that the Member States are obliged to ensure that Community law is fully complied with, it is open to the Commission to demonstrate that compliance with a provision of a directive governing those relations requires the adoption of specific transposing measures in national law (see, to this effect, Case C-72/02  Commission  v  Portugal  [2003] ECR I-6597, paragraphs 19 and 20).
121. It follows from Article 38(1) of the Rules of Procedure and settled case-law that the form of order sought must be worded in unambiguous terms so that the Court does not risk either giving judgment  ultra petita  or failing to give judgment on a head of claim (see, in particular, Joined Cases 46/59 and 47/59  Meroni  v High Authority  [1962] ECR 411, at p. 419).