C-339/97

OPINION OF MR LA PERGOLA — CASE C-339/97

OPINION OF ADVOCATE GENERAL LA PERGOLA delivered on 5 May 1998 *

1. By application lodged on 30 September 2. The defendant Member State, while 1997 the Commission requested the Court to acknowledging that it has not yet transposed declare that, by failing to adopt within the the abovementioned directives into national prescribed period the measures necessary to law, points out that the legislative procedures comply with Commission Directive for the implementation of those measures are 94/15/EC of 15 April 1994 adapting to tech- under way. As the Commission correctly nical progress for the first time Council points out, however, the date which must be Directive 90/220/EEC on the deliberate taken into account when determining release into the environment of genetically whether a Member State has failed to fulfil modified organisms, 1 and with Commission its obligations is that set in the reasoned Directive 94/51/EC of 7 November 1994 opinion. 3 It is not disputed that, at the time, adapting to technical progress Council the defendant State had not adopted the pro- Directive 90/219/EEC on the contained use visions necessary to bring national law into of genetically modified micro-organisms, 2 line with the abovementioned directives; nor the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has failed do such provisions appear to have been to fulfil its obligations. adopted in the course of the present pro- ceedings. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has therefore failed to comply with the directives in question within the prescribed period.