Once again, EU court summons Greece
Greece will have to answer to the European Court of Justice over its failure, in two different cases, to comply with European Union legislation on water purity, it was announced yesterday. The first decision concerns the waste processing plant on the islet of Psyttaleia, off Piraeus, through which Athens’s waste water and sewage passes before flowing into the Saronic Gulf. The Public Works Ministry failed to reply to warnings last July after Greece failed to meet a 1998 deadline to install a third-stage purification process. Similar decisions were made regarding other EU member states including France, Germany, Ireland and Britain. The second decision refers to a waste-processing plant at Elefsina, southwest of Athens, where a third-stage plant was also due to be installed in 1998, although as yet no action has been taken. Meanwhile Brussels has also sent Greece a «considered opinion» (the last measure before taking court action) regarding its failure to implement a directive, effective last July, on the safe packaging and distribution of pesticides and disinfectants.
