92002E3784

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3784/02

by Diana Wallis (ELDR) to the Commission

(17 December 2002)

Subject: Infringement proceedings

On 13 November 2002, the European Commission took the decision to withdraw its application to the European Court of Justice for the imposition of a daily fine on France for failure to implement the Judgment of the Court (C-1/00) of 13 December 2001 ordering France to lift the British beef embargo.

In the light of this and other cases, the Commission stated that it will re-examine its approach to the application of Article 228 of the EC Treaty.

Does the Commission agree that the present possibilities available to it to pursue compliance with EU legislation by a Member State are insufficient to have a deterrent effect on Member States, and therefore need to be reinforced in some way?

Is the Commission intending to bring forward proposals in this respect, bearing in mind the increasing gap in implementation shown in the recent Internal Market scoreboard report?

Does the Commission agree that lump sum or daily penalty payments (Article 228(2)) can be avoided by Member States exploiting the legal process, and that this sends the wrong message to Europe's citizens?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(31 January 2003)

The fact that the Commission decided to review the conditions for implementing Article 228 of the EC Treaty in connection with the case referred to by the Honourable Member cannot be regarded as an admission of inadequate resources but rather a demonstration of the desire to seek the most appropriate ways under the EC Treaty of ensuring that Court of Justice judgments are implemented.

Recently, in connection with the White Paper on Governance as regards better monitoring of the application of Community law(1), the Commission stressed that it intended to give priority to infringement proceedings under Article 228. Likewise, in its contribution to the work of the Convention(2), it proposed reinforcing the machinery at its disposal for performing its general task of ensuring that Union law is properly implemented.

(1) COM(2002) 725 final.

(2) COM(2002) 728 final.