Report for the Hearing delivered in Joined Cases 227 to 230/85

I — Summary of the facts

1. By virtue of Council Directives:

2. Since it had received no information from the Kingdom of Belgium on the measures adopted to comply with these judgments, the Commission, in four letters dated 16 April 1984, requested the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium to submit its observations, in accordance with Article 169 of the EEC Treaty, on its failure to comply with the judgments of the Court.

II — Written procedure and conclusions of the parties

1. By four applications lodged at the Court Registry on 23 July 1985, the Commission brought actions for a declaration under the second paragraph of Article 169 of the EEC Treaty that Belgium had failed to fulfil its obligations, claiming that the Court should:

2. By order of 9 October 1985 the four cases were joined for the purposes of the oral procedure and the judgment.

Ill — Submissions and arguments of the parties

1. The Commission claims that the failure, more than three years after the judgments of 2 February 1982, to adopt the measures implementing the directives in question in the Belgian domestic legal sytem constitutes an infringement of the obligation under Article 171 of the EEC Treaty to take the necessary measures to comply with those judgments.

2. The Belgian Government also describes the situation as regards the implementation of the directives on environmental matters since the entry into force of the aforesaid Special Law of 8 August 1980:

IV — Replies to the questions asked by the Court

In reply to the Court's request for a statement, of the measures still to be taken or still needed to implement each of the directives, the Commission submitted extracts from a study on the review of the application of Community directives on the environment and protection of consumers containing details on how far the four directives in question have been implemented, from which it is clear that they have not yet implemented in particular in the Brussels region and the Walloon region.

The Belgian Government stated that the national authorities, which have powers only as regards Directive 78/176/EEC, have prepared a Royal Decree on discharges into surface water which should enter into force in August 1986. At regional level the Walloon Executive considers that all the implementing decrees will have entered into force by May 1987 at the latest and in the Brussels region royal decrees supplementing a royal decree which implements the four directives and has just been signed will enter into force at the end of 1986.

In answer to a supplementary question asked by the Court, the Belgian Government confirmed that the implementing measures referred to by it will contain all the measures which the Commission considers are still needed to implement the directives fully.

The Commission took note of the statement on the entry into force of those implementing measures, expressed regret at the delay in bringing them into force and reserved the right to examine whether they would implement the four directives fully.

1 Language of the Case: French.