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Press Release from The European Commission DG Environment
The European Commission welcomes today's decision of the European Court of Justice to impose fines on Spain for not meeting EU water quality standards in certain Spanish inland bathing waters, i.e. rivers and lakes. The Court has ordered that Spain pay €624,150 per year for every 1% of inshore Spanish bathing waters that continue to fail to meet the quality stardards set in the Bathing Water Directive. To date, there has been only one other judgment of the Court in which a Member State was fined(1). That also related to EU environmental legislation. The Commission will now study this morning's ruling in detail.
Commenting on the Court ruling, Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström said: "This is only the second time that a financial penalty has been imposed on a Member State for breach of EU law. It is always regrettable when the Commission finds itself obliged to ask for such a penalty, and it never does so lightly. However, the fact that penalties are possible and that the Court of Justice is willing to use them reinforces respect for EU law. This is all the more important in a case such as this where public health is at stake. I look forward to Spain now redoubling its efforts to secure improved bathing water quality for the benefit of the public and the environment."
Background
Today's decision represents a follow-up to an earlier decision of the Court. On 12 February 1998, the Court found that Spain had failed to conform with the limit values set in the Bathing Water Quality Directive for a number of inshore bathing waters (Case C-96/092). The failures were clear from the Annual bathing water reports sent to the Commission.
Since the Court judgment, the annual reports submitted by Spain show a progressive improvement. Spanish inshore bathing water complied with binding water quality standards in 73% of areas for the 1998 bathing season, 76.5% for the 1999 bathing season and 79.2% for the 2000 bathing season. These percentages rose to 80% for the 2001 season and 85.1% for the 2002 season.
While noting the difficulties that compliance presented, the Court considered that the Commission had allowed Spain enough time to reach the required standards. However, it took account of the special circumstances of the case in the way that it set the penalty. In particular, it accepted that compliance should be evaluated annually on the basis of the monitoring results of the bathing season.
It also made allowance for improvements in water quality by using a criterion of 1% of bathing waters. Thus, the penalty will be calculated annually by reference to the percentage of inshore Spanish bathing waters that continue to fail quality tests.
Bathing Water Quality Directive
The Bathing Water Quality Directive(2) is important for public health. It aims to ensure that bathing waters meet minimum quality criteria by establishing a set of binding and stricter EU standards for a range of key parameters (including indicators of the presence of faecal bacteria). The Directive also requires that Member States carry out regular water quality monitoring and send annual reports to the Commission, detailing bathing water quality.
Legal Process
Article 228 of the Treaty gives the Commission power to act against a Member State that does not comply with a previous judgement of the European Court of Justice. The article also allows the Commission to ask the Court to impose a financial penalty on the Member State concerned.
For current statistics on infringements in general see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/sgb/droit_com/index_en.htm#infractions (1) Case C-387/97, Commission v Greece (regarding the illegal waste dump Kouroupitos in Crete) (2) Directive 76/160/EEC concerning the quality of bathing water
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