Action brought on 8 December 2004 by the Commission of the European Communities against the Republic of Austria

(Case C-507/04)

(2005/C 45/30)

Language of the case: German

An action against the Republic of Austria was brought before the Court of Justice of the European Communities on 8 December 2004 by the Commission of the European Communities, represented by Michael Van Beek and Bernhard Schima, acting as Agents, assisted by Matthias Lang, Rechtsanwalt, with an address for service in Luxembourg.

The Commission of the European Communities claims that the Court should:

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action the Commission takes issue with the defective transposition in Austrian law of Directive 79/409/EEC by way of the relevant legal provisions of the Länder of Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Vienna which were notified to the Commission or which the Commission understands to have been adopted.

In the view of the Commission, the following were not fully and/or not correctly implemented for the territory of individual federal Länder: the provisions concerning the scope of Directive 79/409 (Article 1(1) and (2) of the Directive); the general rules governing the protection of bird species (Article 5 of the Directive); the ban on trade (Article 6(1) of the Directive); the provisions governing hunting of the species listed in Annex II (Article 7(1) of the Directive); the rules governing the preservation of populations (Article 7(4) of the Directive); the rules governing prohibited methods and equipment for hunting and capturing wild birds (Article 8 of the Directive); the criteria governing derogations from Articles 5 to 8 (Article 9(1) and (2) of the Directive); and the provisions on the introduction of wild bird species (Article 11 of the Directive).

(1)  OJ 1979 L 103, p. 1.