Commissie daagt België voor Europees Hof vanwege nalaten implementeren regels financiële transparantie (en)
Brussels, 28 th January 2010
The European Commission has decided to refer Belgium to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for its failure to implement Commission Directive 2005/81/EC on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings. Member States were required to implement the Directive into national law by 19 December 2006. Despite two previous warnings (see IP/07/1667 and IP/09/1027), Belgium has not yet informed the Commission about the full implementation of the Directive. The referral to the ECJ is the third and last step in infringement procedures under Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "It is clearly in the interest of European citizens that the Commission is in a position to verify that public money is used to provide public services and not to subsidise commercial activities. Belgium should comply with its financial transparency obligations."
The original Commission Directive (80/723/EEC) imposed a general transparency obligation on financial relations between public authorities and public undertakings. Subsequent amendments in 1985 (85/413/EEC), 1993 (93/84/EEC) and 2000 (2000/52/EC) also required Member States to collect and submit to the Commission, upon request, certain financial data concerning large public undertakings active in the manufacturing sector and extended the transparency requirements to the obligation of keeping separate accounts for public and private companies which, on the one hand, are entrusted with special or exclusive rights or operate services of general economic interest and receive state aid related to these services and, on the other hand, also carry out other activities.
Commission Directive 2005/81/EC modified the definition of undertakings required to keep separate accounts. The obligation now applies to undertakings which are entrusted with a special or exclusive right, or operate a service of general economic interest and receive for it public service compensation in any form, whether or not it is state aid, while also carrying out other activities. Separate accounts identify the costs imputable to the service of general economic interest and make it possible to check that the correct amount of compensation has been paid.
Commission Directive 2006/111/EC of 16 November 2006 codified and replaced the original Transparency Directive and its amendments (including the amendment of 2005) when it entered into force on 20 December 2006. This does not however affect Member States' obligation to respect the implementation deadlines set out in the abovementioned Directives.
Member States were required to implement Commission Directive 2005/81/EC into national law by 19 December 2006.
On 7 November 2007 the Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Belgium under EC Treaty infringement procedures (Article 226 of the EC Treaty, now Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - TFEU) (see IP/07/1667 ). In this letter the Commission sought information on whether Belgium had adopted the necessary measures to ensure that companies, receiving state compensation for the discharge of a public service while exercising commercial activities, keep separate accounts, as required by the financial transparency Directive.
On 25 June 2009 the Commission addressed a reasoned opinion under EC Treaty infringement procedures to Belgium ( IP/09/1027 ) requiring it to notify implementation measures.
To date, Belgium has not informed the Commission of the entry into force of all the necessary measures for the implementation of the Directive in its entire territory.