Action brought on 15 February 2022 – European Commission v Romania

(Case C-109/22)

Language of the case: Romanian

Parties

Applicant: European Commission (represented by: L. Nicolae and E. Sanfrutos Cano, acting as Agents)

Defendant: Romania

Form of order sought

The Commission claims that the Court should:

declare that, by failing to take all the measures necessary to comply with the judgment of the Court in Case C-301/17, Commission v Romania, ¹ Romania has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 260(1) TFEU;

order Romania, in accordance with the provisions of Article 260(2) TFEU, to make penalty payments in the amount of EUR 29 781.30 for each day of delay in fulfilling its obligation to take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment in Case C-301/17, Commission v Romania, from the date of delivery of the judgment in the present case until all the measures necessary to comply with the judgment in Case C-301/17, Commission v Romania, have been adopted;

order Romania, in accordance with the provisions of Article 260(2) TFEU, to pay a lump sum, based on a daily amount of EUR 3 311.50, multiplied by the number of days which have elapsed from the day following the delivery of the judgment in Case C-301/17, Commission v Romania, until the date on which all the necessary measures have been taken by Romania to comply with that judgment, or, where those measures have not been taken, until the date of delivery of the judgment of the Court in the present case, the minimum amount of that lump sum being EUR 1 643 000;

order Romania to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The action brought by the European Commission against Romania concerns the failure by that Member State to fulfil its obligation to take all the measures necessary to comply with the judgment of the Court in Case C-301/17, because 44 of the 68 landfills to which that judgment refers have not yet been closed in accordance with Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste. ¹

The Commission submits that Romania cannot rely on purely internal situations in order to justify a failure to comply with the judgment of the Court, such as the need to carry out certain feasibility studies, the completion of certain compulsory purchase procedures, the conducting of certain administrative proceedings, or the failure by the economic operators who operate those landfills to take the necessary measures.

Therefore, the Commission proposes that penalty payments be applied to Romania for each day of delay in complying with the judgment of the Court in an amount of EUR 29 781.30 per day from the date of delivery of the judgment in the present case until all the measures necessary to comply with the judgment in Case C-301/17 have been adopted. In order to ensure that it will be possible to monitor, verify and take into consideration the progress made by Romania, the Commission proposes that the penalty payments for each day of delay be calculated on the basis of 6-month periods of delay in taking the measures necessary to comply with the judgment of the Court in Case C-301/17, through the use of a degressive formula, whereby the total for such periods is reduced by a percentage which corresponds to the proportion representing the number of landfills which have been brought into compliance with the provisions of Directive 1999/31.

The Commission also proposes that Romania be obliged to pay a lump sum, based on a daily amount of EUR 3 311.50, multiplied by the number of days which have elapsed from the day following the delivery of the judgment in Case C-301/17 until the date on which all the necessary measures have been taken by Romania to comply with that judgment, or, where those measures have not been taken, until the date of delivery of the judgment of the Court in the present case, the minimum amount of that lump sum being EUR 1 643 000.

The amount of those penalties has been determined by taking into account the seriousness and the duration of the infringement, as well as the need to ensure that penalties have a deterrent effect based on that Member State’s ability to pay, using the factor ‘n’.

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¹ Judgment of the Court of 18 October 2018, Commission v Romania, C-301/17, EU:C:2018:846.

¹ OJ 1999 L 182, p. 1.