Talk:Directive (European Union)

The Council of the European Union usually doesn't produce legislation on it's own. The legislative branch of the EU is made up of the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. http://europa.eu/abc-en.htm Hdk 09:41 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Orders from Brussels
The problem of the definition of orders from Brussels still has to be clarified: although what is stated now is theoretically correct (both the parliament and the council have to approve), the directives are produced on the initiative of the Commission (which has the sole right to initiative), and voting of them by the council is often a routine matter or is 'forced' by the commission (such as with the infamous software patent directive which was submitted to approval by agricultural ministers!) LHOON 12:47 06 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * That is your PoV: Wiki must reflect the legal facts.
 * But if you read the European Commission article, you will see that the Commission drafts the proposal largely on the request on member states. In this, it operates not dramaticallly differently from any of the national Civil Services. Again, since they only draft the text, Ministers and the Parliament negotiate firmly in both the common and in their national interests and the later drafts on controversial matters are substantially changed.  So the fixation with the production of the first draft is a eurosceptic totem that doesn't really stand up to critical examination.  --Red King 17:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Structure of Codes
As you'll probably know, all the directives have codes in the same format: e.g. 98/71/EC. My question is, does the EC in the codes refer to European Communities? The only I can think of is European Commission, but as it used to be xx/xx/EEC, I would assume it now stands for European Communities. Yeah? - Рэд  хот  11:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right it does refer to the European Communities which still exist under the umbrella of the European Union. Caveat lector 12:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Recent additions
I plan to delete the following paragraph:


 * "However, the European Commission sometimes inexplicably takes no action, as in the case of the Spanish transposition (Real Decreto-Ley 11/1995) of the Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC. In the Spanish transposition the definition of a collecting system was changed, adding an addition twelve words and as a consequence the municipal sewer and drainage networks were excluded from the Spanish transposition. Consequently, there is only a need to provide a collecting system going from the municipal network to the treatment plant and if there is no municipal network there is no need to provide any collecting system at all. In addition, Spain did not bring into force the regulations and administrative provisions required by Article 19 of the Directive, which were both compulsory and necessary to define responsibilities, procedures and the method of finance. Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens, mainly residents of urbanizations (housing estates) developed in the 1960s and 1970s, have been prejudiced by this incorrect transposition. The Commission, without explaining why, has refused to recognise that the transposition is incorrect, only stating to the Committee on Petitions on April 30th 2009 that 'the Commission considers that the formal transposition is correct.' As a result, there are countless urbanisations in Spain within agglomerations of over 2000 people still without sewers in 2009. Members of the Committee on Petitions urged the Commission to consider in more detail this question."

This is a general article on directives and is not meant to deal with specific claims that certain directives have failed to be transpositioned correctly. Moreover the claimed incorrect transposition appears to be the opinion of the petitioners. As stated in the paragraph the Commission views it as correct. It's a non-story. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 19:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This was re-added and should probably be removed again. It is duplicated at Water supply and sanitation in the European Union where it is also, as yet, unsourced. For citing sources, see WP:RS and Cite. It should not be included in a general article on directives. There might be a weak argument for inclusion if there are reliable secondary sources referring to this as a major precedent. --Boson (talk) 11:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Dear Blue Haired Lawyer, You may consider this to be a non-story, but I see that you are a lawyer therefore you may wish to check out the following information and reach your own conclusions, even if it is only for your own curiosity as a lawyer. In my humble opinion (as a former British Environmental Health Officer) it is not a story but all facts, the majority of which can easily be verified on the internet by referring to 1) The Directive; 2) The Real Decreto-Ley 11/1995; 3) La Lei de la millora d’urbanizacions. (The Law to improve the infrastructures in urbanizations in Catalonia) and Committee on Petitions, Petition Nº 0274/2006. The Spanish Government made at the time of transposing the Directive a very serious change to the definition of a collecting system in Article 2 of the Directive. In the Directive, a collecting system means “a system of conduits which collects and conducts urban waste water” and therefore all sewers and drains, both public and private were included. However, in the Spanish transposition (Real Decreto-Ley 11/1995 of December 28 1995), the definition of a collecting system was changed to mean “all systems of conduits which collect and conduct urban waste water, from the municipal sewer and drainage networks and go to the treatment plants.” The added words mean that when the Spanish definition is applied to Article 3 of the Directive the municipal sewer and drainage networks are excluded and therefore did not need to comply with the Directive. In other words most of the public sewers were excluded and all of the private drains and sewers. If the municipal network did not exist, as in the case of many urbanizations (housing estates) developed in the 1960s and 1970s within agglomerations of over 2000 p.e. no collecting system needed to be provided at all, which would also apply to any small towns or villages covered by the Directive, which still do not have a collecting system. Obviously, if waste water is not collected it cannot be treated, therefore the changed definition also affected Article 4 of the Directive. On top of all that the regulations and administrative provisions required by Article 19 were never brought into force and do not exist. In addition, no already existing legislation complied with the requirements of the Directive and none was amended to do so. My local Council (with over 30 urbanizations, 20 kilometres from Barcelona and in an agglomeration of over 15000 p.e. in a declared sensitive area) considers correctly that it has no responsibilities under the Real Decreto-Ley and the Catalan Water Agency, correctly, only accepts responsibility for the main sewers going from the municipal network to the treatment plant if and when the municipal network exists. The Spanish Government did not delegate responsibility for complying with the Directive within the municipal areas to anybody. On March 5 2009, the Catalan Autonomous Government finally approved a law (La Llei de la millora d’urbanizacions) to deal with deficits of infrastructures, such as sewers in urbanizations in Catalonia, 18 years after the Directive was approved by the European Parliament, but with no time limits. I have an ongoing Petition in the Committee on Petitions, since early 2006, for non-compliance in Corbera de Llobregat where I live, which has been included in a Reasoned Opinion (a final warning) issued last November by the Commission to the Spanish Government. I didn’t discover the changed definition until September 2007 and since then I have been trying to get the Commission to take action to correct the transposition, with the full support of the Committee on Petitions. The Commission has always insisted that the transposition is correct, but when pressured by Committee members on April 30th 2009, the Commission representative stated that, “the Commission considers that the formal transposition is correct,” which as you will appreciate is now only an opinion and no longer a fact and it has not justified that opinion with anything and has already conceded in writing in May of 2008 that the Real Decreto-Ley does only cover collecting systems going from the municipal network to the treatment plant. Members of the Committee urged them to consider in more detail this question and decided that the examination of my Petition would resume as soon as new information was received. Nevertheless, I do not expect the Commission will ever admit the truth as it would mean confirming that they were fooled by the Spanish Government in 1995, unless they allowed it, but why would they have done that? No doubt they also think that nothing would be gained by admitting the truth as in reality the compliance dates passed long ago and they would only be confirming that they failed as Guardians of the Treaty. You may not think this information should be in Wikipedia, but in my opinion it should be in the public domain and perhaps the verifiable facts could be included under the heading “Implementation” of the Directive (for the lack of it). The new Catalan Law is very controversial due to the high costs which will be involved, which in many cases will exceed 40,000 euros per householder as renewal of other infrastructures will also be required, before the urbanizations are adopted by the Councils. Spain has received almost 200 billion euros from the EU in Cohesion Funds and Regional Development Funds etc. up to now and had local authorities been given responsibility to comply with the Directive I am sure that they would have asked for a share of the cake. That may well be why the Spanish Government changed the definition and gave nobody the responsibility to comply in the municipal areas themselves. I have no knowledge or information on the levels of non-compliance in the other Autonomous Regions of Spain, but in Catalonia, according to official information of the Generalitat, there are over 1,300 urbanizations with deficient sewer systems or no sewers (mostly no sewers) many of which are in agglomerations of over 2000 p.e. Finally, do not believe everything the Commission says, as I can assure you that the Commission has no scruples about not telling the truth when it suits their needs.--Geoffkealty (talk) 11:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Orders from Brussels #2
The article as it stands gives no clue as to how a Directive comes to exist. If one were so minded, one could very easily read it to mean that "some faceless eurocrat' dreams it up with the specific purpose of 'destroying traditional British values' (see D Mail, D Express, Sun, D Torygraph etc any day of the week). I expect every other member state has similar scare-mongerers.

A section need to be written to explain the reality. [If I felt that I knew the answer with sufficient precision [with cites], I do it - but I don't. Volunteer please? --Red King (talk) 23:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hopefully quoting the treaty text is sufficient to show how it arises. --Red King (talk) 11:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Legistlative act / legal instrument
We seem to have a little debate about this. First, I don't agree with Jimmi that only Parliament can create legislative acts (qv). Whilst this is certainly true in member states, it is not true in the EU context where the Parliament is only one leg (pillar?) of the process: it is not sovereign. Nevertheless, it seems to me that 'legal instrument' reads far better than 'legislative act' and seems more appropriate in the EU context. Legal instrument is reasonably self explanatory, whereas legistlative act is very legalese and distracts the reader far too early in the article. Furthermore, legislative act redirects immediately to Act of Parliament, which is clearly the wrong place to go. --Red King (talk) 11:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Authors of books on EU law calls them acts; the European Parliament calls them acts; the Treaties call them acts; the ECJ calls them acts; so it is perfectly acceptable to call them acts. But unless someone can state what is wrong with "legal instruments", I think that is also acceptable. --Boson (talk) 18:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Legislative is both more specific and descriptive. A legal act is legislative because it is of general application, not because it is the act of a legislature. I can provide thousands of sources, if necessary, which confirm that directives and regulations are legislative acts. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 19:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In that case, you will have to replace the redirect to Act of Parliament that is currently at legislative act with some new text.--Red King (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Directives not subset of legislative acts
"A directive is a legislative act of the European Union (...)". This sentence is not correct. A directive can be a legislative act, but all of them are not. Directives are not automatically legislative acts. Only directives adopted through a legislative procedure are legislative acts. See TFEU art. 289(3). --Glentamara (talk) 17:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
The meaning of the last sentence in Directive (European Union), "On 1 May 2008, 1,298 such cases open before the Court" is unclear. Should it read "... cases were open ..."? Ian S (talk) 13:17, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I removed the sentence. It's been without a source for long enough. Without a source we can have no clear idea of what it was meant to say. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 16:43, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Directive (European Union). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20050308103418/http://www.eubusiness.com:80/guides/legislation to http://www.eubusiness.com/guides/legislation

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:17, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Directive (European Union). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100612213147/http://w4mp.org/html/library/standardnotes/snia-03689.pdf to http://www.w4mp.org/html/library/standardnotes/snia-03689.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)