The EU Commission announced on Wednesday that it will seek rulings and financial penalties against Poland and Slovenia before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to meet the transposition deadline for the Waste Electrical and Electronic Waste (WEEE) Directive. The daily fines requested by the Commission stand at €71,610 for Poland and €8408.40 for Slovenia. The recast Directive was to have been implemented in national law by 14 February of last year, but neither of the countries is yet in compliance, according to the Commission.
Slovakia, too, had failed to meet the deadline, the Commission alleged, adding that it had advanced infringement proceedings against that member state to the second stage by sending a reasoned opinion, which gives the member state just two months to act before the EU body can refer the case to the ECJ. Slovakia, which had already received a first written warning from the Commission, has plans to implement the Directive, but its national law is not slated to enter into force until 1 January 2016.
The raft of infringements announced on Wednesday also included cases against Bulgaria for non-implementation of the Mining Waste Directive and the UK for breaching the Industrial Emissions Directive by failing to eliminate the use of small waste oil burners. The EU body also said it would move on to litigation against Romania for its failure to transpose amendments to the Packaging Directive into national law.
