Report for the Hearing delivered in Case 390/85

I — Facts and procedure

1. On 5 March 1979 the Council adopted Directive 79/279/EEC coordinating the conditions for the admission of securities to stock exchange listing (Official Journal, L 66 of 16 March 1979, p. 21). Article 22 of that directive provides, firstly, that the Member States should take the measures necessary to comply with the directive within two years of its notification and, secondly, that they should inform the Commission thereof forthwith.

2. In view of the failure to adopt the transposition measures promised by the Belgian Government the Commission brought this action against the Belgian Government for failure to meet its obligations, which was received at the Court Registry on 12 December 1985.

II — Conclusions of the parties

1. The Commission claims that the Court should:

2. The Government of the Kingdom of Belgium has not submitted formal conclusions to the Court.

III — Submissions and arguments of the parties

1. The Commission stresses that directives are binding as to the result to be achieved upon the Member States to which they are addressed under the third paragraph of Article 189 and the first paragraph of Article 5 of the EEC Treaty, which provides that the Member States are to take all appropriate measures to ensure fulfilment of the obligations arising out of the Treaty or resulting from action taken by the institutions of the Community. It further refers to the Court's case-law according to which, as a result of the aforesaid anieles of the Treaty, Member States to which directives are addressed are under an obligation to bring their legislation into line with them within the time-limits laid down therein and may not plead provisions, practices or circumstances existing in their internal legal systems in order to justify failures to comply with obligations and time-limits resulting from Community directives. It maintains that since it is uncontested and uncontestable that the Kingdom of Belgium has not adopted the necessary measures to comply therewith it has failed to fulfil its obligations under Directives 79/279/EEC, 80/390/EEC and 82/121/EEC.

2. The Belgian Government does not contest that measures to transpose the three directives into its national legal order have not yet been adopted and merely describes the difficulties experienced in adapting its national legislation. Those difficulties are connected, on the one hand, with the directives themselves and, on the other, with their transposition into national law.

1 Language of the Case: French.