C-38/89

Mr President, States. 1 In other words, the principle of Members of the Court, reciprocity has no validity in Community law as far as the fulfilment of obligations under the Treaty is concerned. Unilateral I — Admissibility action may not be taken against the failure of individual Member States to fulfil such obligations; only the forms of procedure prescribed in Articles 169 and 170 of the 1. At the hearing today, the defendant's EEC Treaty may be used, by the representative stated that the criminal Commission and by the Member States of proceedings against his client had been the European Communities, for that discontinued as a result of an amnesty. To purpose. his knowledge, though, no request had been made to withdraw the reference made to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. According to its case-law, the Court remains seised of a request for a preliminary ruling until it is expressly withdrawn. Unless 4. Since, therefore, a Member State has not the Court should decide otherwise, only the power but actually a duty under therefore, the questions referred to it must Article 189 of the EEC Treaty to implement be answered. a directive within the prescribed period, it is undisputable that the individual citizen must comply with the national law corresponding to the directive, even if other Member States II — Substance have not yet fulfilled that obligation. It follows that he may not rely on a failure to implement the directive in other Member 2. As regards the substance of the request, States. the national court wishes to know whether national legislation which Member States are obliged to adopt in accordance with a directive based on Article 54(3)(g) of the EEC Treaty may enter into force indi­ 5. This applies also to the Fourth Council vidually so long as not all the Member Directive of 25 July 1978 on the annual States have enacted equivalent legislation. 2 accounts of certain types of companies, with which this reference is concerned. That directive is based on Article 54(3)(g) of the 3. It must be pointed out first of all that, as EEC Treaty, which provides for the coordi- the Court has consistently held, a Member State may not make the fulfilment of its 1 — See the judgments of 22 March 1977 in Case 78/76 own obligations under Community law Steinike und Weinhg v Germany (1977] ECR 595. at p 613, of 25 September 1979 in Case 232/78 Commission conditional upon the performance of the v France [1979] ECR 2729. and of 14 February 1984 m same obligations by the other Member Case 325/82 Commission v Germany [1984] ECR 777, at p. 793. See also Article 55 of the Constitution of the French Republic of 4 October 1958

7. It should be noted, in that regard, that the requirement of equivalent safeguards expresses the actual degree of harmon­ ization to be attained by directives based on Article 54(3)(g). That provision does not, therefore, require complete standardization; 9. Furthermore, in the specific context of it is sufficient that the national safeguards the transposition of directives concerning should be equivalent in their effects. A legal company law, Member States must obligation on the Community legislature introduce the provisions of Community law and the Member States to make the national into their own different systems of company 3 applicability of implementing measures law, which may cause serious difficulties. dependent on the enactment of such In order to lessen those difficulties, the measures in all the Member States cannot, period allowed for the implementation of however, be inferred from Article 54(3)(g). individual provisions of the directive in The Community is based on observance of question is longer than that normally the law by the Member States, so that it may be assumed that the Member States 3 — See, in this connection, the Fifth Annual Report to the European Parliament on Commission monitoring of the have brought their pre-existing national application of Community law, p. 2 et seq. of the roneoed laws into line with the legal prescriptions of version, and the Fourth Progress Report of the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament the directive at the time specified by the concerning the implementation of the Commission's White Paper on the completion of the internal market, p. 4, point directive. 14 et seq.

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