1. By application lodged at the Court Registry on 13 May 2003, the Commission of the European Communities brought an action under Article 226 EC for a declaration that, by failing to adopt the necessary measures under Article 3(1) of Council Directive 75/439/EEC of 16 June 1975 on the disposal of waste oils (OJ 1975 L 194, p. 23), as amended by Council Directive 87/101/EEC of 22 December 1986 (OJ 1987 L 42, p. 43) (hereinafter ‘Directive 75/439’), to ensure that priority is given to the processing of waste oils by regeneration where technical, economic and organisational constraints so allow, the Kingdom of Sweden has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive.
2. Pursuant to Article 2 of Directive 87/101, Member States were required to take the measures necessary to comply with that Directive with effect from 1 January 1990.
3. As it took the view that Article 3(1) of Directive 75/439 had not been transposed into Swedish law within the prescribed period, the Commission brought infringement proceedings against the Kingdom of Sweden. Having called upon the latter to submit its observations, the Commission sent it a reasoned opinion on 21 March 2002 inviting it to take the necessary measures to comply with that opinion within two months of its notification. As the information provided by the Swedish authorities disclosed that the directive in question had not been transposed, the Commission decided to bring this action.
4. While it did not deny that the directive had not been transposed, the Swedish Government claimed that the failure to do so resulted from the consideration being given by the competent authorities to the appropriate procedures for ensuring that priority was given to the disposal of waste oils by regeneration.
5. The Court has consistently held that a Member State cannot rely on provisions, practices or circumstances in its own legal order to justify failure to implement a directive within the prescribed period (see, inter alia, Case C-276/98 Commission v Portugal [2001] ECR I-1699, paragraph 20, and Case C-352/01 Commission v Spain [2002] ECR I‑10263, paragraph 8).
6. In those circumstances, the Commission’s application must be held to be well founded.
7. It must accordingly be held that, by failing to adopt the necessary measures under Article 3(1) of Directive 75/439 to ensure that priority is given to the processing of waste oils by regeneration where technical, economic and organisational constraints so allow, the Kingdom of Sweden has failed to fulfil its obligations under that directive.