February the 17th, 2023 - The European Commission (EC) has submitted two lawsuits against Croatia to the EU courts for failing to implement waste directives. Hungary and Portugal also have cases against them.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, on Wednesday, the European Commission submitted two lawsuits against Croatia to the EU courts, one for not transposing the directive on energy from renewable sources, and the other for not complying with an earlier court ruling regarding an illegal landfill in Donje Biljane (close to Benkovac).
On that same day (Wednesday) as part of the package of violations of European Union law for this month, the European Commission referred to the lawsuits against Croatia, as well as to those cases against neighbouring Hungary and also Portugal with a request to impose financial sanctions for not transposing the EU Directive on energy from renewable sources into the national legislations of those member states.
The EU member states in question, including the Republic of Croatia, were all obliged to transpose the directive by June the 30th, 2021, but Croatia, Hungary and Portugal have not yet duly reported on the specific transposition of all of the necessary provisions of the aforementioned EU-wide directive into their national legislation.
The European Commission thus decided to re-refer the lawsuit against Croatia because it has failed to fully comply with the Court's judgment from back on May the 2nd, 2019. It found that Croatia failed to fulfill its obligations from the Framework Directive regarding waste in connection with the illegal landfill close to Benkovac referred to above.
Around 140,000 tonnes of residue from ferromanganese and silicomanganese processing since way back in 2010 have been dumped directly in this illegal waste dump, less than 50 metres from the houses themselves. The court confirmed that the stone aggregate dumped there should be considered waste, and not a mere by-product.
The court further established that the waste must be managed in a way that does not endanger people's health or cause damage to the surrounding environment. In addition to the two lawsuits against Croatia, the country also received a few more official warnings, which is the first step in procedures initiated against European Union member states.
For more, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.
