February infringements package: main decisions - Part 3 | WPN World People News

3. Other important decisions

Energy: Commission withdraws Court case against POLAND for failing to transpose EU rules

The Renewable Energy Directive (Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources) aims at ensuring a 20% share of renewable energy in the EU by 2020. The Directive had to be transposed by the Member States by 5 December 2010.

European Commission sent a Letter of Formal Notice in January 2011, a Reasoned Opinion in March 2012 and referred the case to the Court of Justice for complete absence of transposition in March 2013. A penalty for non-transposition was originally proposed under Art. 260(3) TFEU, amounting to EUR 133.228,80 per day.

Poland transposed part of the provisions of the Directive during the Court proceedings. Consequently, European Commission narrowed down the scope of the application to the obligations which were still missing and reduced the proposed penalty to EUR 61.380 per day. A hearing before the Court took place on 7 October 2014 and the Advocate-General Wathelet delivered his Opinion on the case on 11 December 2014.

For the sake of consistency, European Commission has decided to apply its normal practice – as set out in its Communication on the implementation of Article 260(3) TFEU, which consists in withdrawing pending cases before the Court of Justice where only a daily penalty has been proposed, if the Member State complies with the obligation to transpose the Directive's obligations into national law. In this specific case, Poland notified the full transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive on 29 January 2015.

Nevertheless, European Commission has also decided to review before summer its policy on infringement procedures and in particular on the application of Article 260(3) TFEU for the future in order to ensure more effective and timely transposition of EU Directives in the Member States.

In addition, European Commission draws attention to paragraph 10 of its Communication on the implementation of Article 260(3), and reserves the right to use its discretion and to depart from the general criteria set out in its Communication, giving detailed reasons, where appropriate in particular cases.

Source: European Commission