Romanian authorities warned by EC in three cases

Romania is likely to reach the European Court of Justice in three cases reported Thursday by the European Commission.

Two concern environmental issues, and the third free movement of goods.

Romania has two months to reply to the Commission and then it could forward the cases to the Court of Justice with the proposed application of financial sanctions.

The first environmental problem concerns the failure of legislation to protect the habitat of wild birds.

Commission notes that Romania has failed to conduct a thorough and comprehensive impact assessment for a development project in 2009 approved in Sulina beach on the Black Sea.

The Commission sent Romania a letter of formal notice in May 2010.

Romania's response did not address all concerns of the Commission, and the letter was followed by a first reasoned opinion in January 2011.

Currently, further clarification is needed on the procedure and the conflicting elements present in the document submitted by Romania - especially on the final version of the impact study presented by this project and the negative impacts of development on these habitats.

A similar case concerns in the announcement of Thursday of the Commission also Hungary.

Dangerous metals, prohibited at the manufacture of motor vehicles

The second infringement on environment for Romania, which is still in its early notification before the Court of Justice, also with a period of two months to address concerns the disued vehicles legislation.

"The European Commission urges Romania and Slovakia to harmonize national legislation on disued vehicles with EU legislation. These Member States did not notify the Commission on the transposition of legislative provisions to update the prohibition on the use of dangerous metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium in vehicle materials and components ", says the European Commission communication.

These measures should have been in force from December 31, 2011.

At the recommendation of Environment Commissioner, Janez Potočnik, the Commission sends reasoned opinions and calls on countries to comply within two months. "If those states do not do so, the Commission may refer the matter to the EU Court of Justice", the Commission stated in the release.

The directive stake raised in this case is that the Member States to ensure that spare parts for vehicles put on the market after July 1 2003 do not contain lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium only under certain conditions.

The third infringement announced Thursday for Romania is from the free movement of goods.

"Until recently, the European market fragmentation for defense products and divergent national approaches have created many problems for the European defense industry. For instance, the national systems established to control the transfer of defense equipment to another Member State did not distinguish between exports to third countries and transfers between member states, " said the EC statement.

Romania and Italy are countries that have not yet sent the adoption of legislation which transposes the Directive.


Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University