November 12 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said on Friday it has referred Romania to the Court of Justice of the EU for failing to transpose a 2018 Court judgement which required it to comply with the landfill directive.
"This is a second referral to Court which may result in penalties for the time elapsed after the first judgement until achieving compliance," the European Commission said in its November package of infringement decisions.
Three years after the judgment, Romania has closed and rehabilitated 24 landfills. Thus, 44 are still not closed and for many of them the necessary works for their rehabilitation are not yet planned, according to the EC.
To comply with the Court judgment, Romania is expected to take all the necessary measures in order to ensure that these landfills are closed, sealed and rehabilitated as soon as possible due to the health and environmental risks they entail.
The landfill directive sets standards and provides guidance to prevent or reduce as far as possible negative effects on human health and the environment from landfilling of waste.
As part of its November infringement package, the Commission also sent Romania one reasoned opinion and two letters of formal notice concerning pending issues in those areas that the country needs to tackle.
The Commission has also decided to send reasoned opinions to request Romania and France to complete the transposition of the audio-visual media services directive. The directive aims to ensure a fair single market for broadcast services that keeps up with technological developments, leading to a safer, fairer and more diverse audio-visual landscape, including both traditional TV broadcasters, on-demand video services and video-sharing platforms.
If Romania does not address this reasoned opinion in two months, the Commission will refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.
Further on, the EC asked Romania and four other member states to improve their treatment of waste. In 2015, the Commission launched a study to investigate the landfilling of untreated non-hazardous municipal solid waste in member states.
For Romania, the study revealed shortcomings in all visited sites and that most of the waste is landfilled without any treatment. The landfills subject to investigation are lacking infrastructure capacities and so are the counties where these landfills are located.
Another letter of formal notice was sent to Romania and five other member states asking them to ensure correct transposition of EU rules on combating terrorism. According to the Commission, these rules include provisions that criminalise and sanction terrorist-related offences, such as travelling abroad to commit a terrorist offence, returning to or travelling within the EU for such activities, training for terrorist purposes and financing terrorism.
Romania now has two months to respond to the two letters of formal notice. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.