Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The questions to be considered by the Court, which were submitted under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty in three judgments of 30 October 1985 of the Seventh Chamber of the Rechtbank van Eerste Aanleg (Court of First Instance), Bruges, call for an interpretation of certain rules of Council Directive No 75/442 of 15 July 1975 on waste (Official Journal 1975, L 194, p. 47). The questions were raised in the course of three criminal actions against Oscar Traen, Camiel Quicke, Edouard Quicke and Remi Vanhove, the private limited company Quicke PVBA being joined to the proceedings as the party liable to pay any costs and fines.

2. For a better understanding of the questions, it is appropriate to describe the purposes and the main provisions of the directive which the Court is called upon to interpret.

3. I shall now consider the questions submitted to the Court. As will be recalled, the first concerns the criteria for establishing to whom and, in particular, to what undertakings the directive applies. The central issue is the degree of intensity with which the disposal operations are carried out. Is it sufficient if that activity is occasional or must waste disposal necessarily be one of the objects of the undertaking and therefore constitute its main or a subsidiary activity and, in the latter case, must it be carried out on a continuing basis?

4. The second question is intended to establish (a) whether, where waste is deposited on behalf of third parties on land on the instructions, at the request or with the consent of the owner or occupier of the land, the carrier is obliged to obtain a permit; and (b) whether, by reason of his consenting to waste being deposited, the owner or occupier who has acquired ownership of the waste is also required to obtain a permit from the authorities indicated in Article 5.

5. Thirdly, the Bruges court asks whether the authorities empowered to grant permits may include the director of a public water-purification company.

6. The fourth question concerns the extent of the discretion enjoyed by Members States regarding organization of the supervision of undertakings which dispose of their own waste and of those which dispose of waste on behalf of third parties.

7. In the fifth question, the national court raises the age-old problem of whether directives which have not been implemented in due time or in the proper manner by a Member State are to be recognized as effective; in other words, it asks whether Articles 8 and 12 apply directly to undertakings which dispose of waste.

8. In view of all the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court should give the following answers to the questions submitted by the Seventh Chamber of the Rechtbank van Eerste Aanleg, Bruges, by judgments of 30 October 1985 in proceedings against Oscar Traen, Camiel Quicke, Edouard Quicke, Remi Vanhove and Quicke PVBA:

1 Translated from the Italian.