Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions)

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Member States ° Obligations ° Implementation of directives ° Failure to fulfil obligations ° Justification ° Not permissible
(EC Treaty, Art. 169)

A Member State may not plead provisions, practices or circumstances existing in its internal legal system in order to justify a failure to comply with the obligations and time-limits laid down in Community directives.

In Case C-147/94,
Commission of the European Communities, represented by Dimitrios Gouloussis, Legal Adviser, and F. Enrique González Díaz, a member of the Legal Service, acting as Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the office of Georgios Kremlis, of the Commission' s Legal Service, Wagner Centre, Kirchberg,
applicant,
v
Kingdom of Spain, represented by Alberto José Navarro González, Director General of Community Legal and Institutional Coordination, and Gloria Calvo Díaz, Abogado del Estado, from the Community Litigation Service, acting as Agents, with an address for service at the Spanish Embassy, 4-6 Boulevard Emmanuel Servais,
defendant,
APPLICATION for a declaration that, by failing to adopt and bring into force the laws, regulations or administrative provisions necessary to comply with Council Directive 90/618/EEC of 8 November 1990 amending, particularly as regards motor vehicle liability insurance, Directive 73/239/EEC and Directive 88/357/EEC which concern the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to direct insurance other than life assurance (OJ 1990 L 330, p. 44) and by not informing the Commission thereof, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under the EC Treaty,
THE COURT (Sixth Chamber),
composed of: F.A. Schockweiler, President of the Chamber, P.J.G. Kapteyn, C.N. Kakouris (Rapporteur), J.L. Murray and H. Ragnemalm, Judges,
Advocate General: F.G. Jacobs,
Registrar: R. Grass,
having regard to the report of the Judge-Rapporteur,
after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 9 March 1995,
gives the following
Judgment

1 By application lodged at the Court Registry on 30 May 1994, the Commission of the European Communities brought an action under Article 169 of the EC Treaty for a declaration that, by failing to adopt and bring into force the laws, regulations or administrative provisions necessary to comply with Council Directive 90/618/EEC of 8 November 1990 amending, particularly as regards motor vehicle liability insurance, Directive 73/239/EEC and Directive 88/357/EEC which concern the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to direct insurance other than life assurance (OJ 1990 L 330, p. 44, hereinafter "the directive") and by not informing the Commission thereof, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty.
2 The first paragraph of Article 12 of the directive provides that the Member States are to amend their national provisions to comply with the directive within 18 months of the date of its notification and inform the Commission thereof forthwith. The directive was notified to the Kingdom of Spain on 20 November 1990.
3 Since it received no communication from the Kingdom of Spain concerning measures transposing the directive, on 6 August 1992 the Commission sent it a letter of formal notice requesting it to submit its observations. No reply to that letter was received. Consequently, on 24 May 1993 the Commission issued a reasoned opinion requesting the Kingdom of Spain to take the measures necessary to comply with the directive within a period of two months from the date of notification of the reasoned opinion. Since that also met with no response, the Commission lodged the present action.
4 The Kingdom of Spain does not dispute the fact that the directive has not been transposed. It states merely that a "Draft law amending the legislation concerning private insurance" had been prepared by the Directorate General for Insurance, but when the time-limit for introducing amendments in the Senate expired and the draft law was going through the Parliamentary stage, the Chambers were dissolved and general elections called; the result was that the draft law was lost and the legislative procedure had to begin again and has still not been completed.
5 According to the settled case-law of the Court, a Member State may not plead provisions, practices or circumstances existing in its internal legal system in order to justify a failure to comply with the obligations and time-limits laid down in Community directives.
6 Since the directive has not been fully transposed within the period prescribed by Article 12 of the Directive the declaration sought by the Commission must be granted.
7 On the other hand, contrary to what the Commission maintained, the Court does not have to take account of the lack of communication of the laws, regulations or administrative provisions necessary in order to comply with the directive, since the Kingdom of Spain had not adopted those provisions within the period prescribed in the reasoned opinion (see the judgment in Case C-303/93 Commission v Italy [1994] ECR I-1901, at paragraph 6).
8 It must therefore be held that, by failing to adopt and bring into force the laws, regulations or administrative provisions necessary to comply with the directive, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty.

Costs
Under Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs. Since the defendant has failed in its submissions, it must be ordered to pay the costs.

On those grounds,
THE COURT (Sixth Chamber)
hereby:
1. Declares that, by failing to adopt and bring into force within the prescribed period the laws, regulations or administrative provisions necessary to comply with Council Directive 90/618/EEC of 8 November 1990 amending, particularly as regards motor vehicle liability insurance, Directive 73/239/EEC and Directive 88/357/EEC which concern the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to direct insurance other than life assurance, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under the EC Treaty;
2. Dismisses the remainder of the application;
3. Orders the Kingdom of Spain to pay the costs.