ENVIRONMENT: LEGAL ACTION AGAINST BELGIUM ON PACKAGING WASTE AND ECO-LABELS.

Summary: The European Commission decided on December 10 to refer Belgium to the Court of Justice for non-respect of the European Union's 1994 Packaging Waste Directive and the 1992 Eco-Label Regulation, two key pieces of environmental legislation.

Directive 94/62/EC sets out measures to prevent the production of packaging waste and promote the reuse, recycling or recovery of packaging and packaging waste. The Directive requires Member States to draw up waste management plans which should contain a specific chapter on packaging waste. The deadline for adopting and communicating national legislation was the end of June 1996, and the Commission believes that Belgium has failed to comply on two counts. The first infringement concerns the Government's failure to notify measures transposing certain requirements of the Directive into national law, notably a provision limiting the concentrations of heavy metals present in packaging, and transitional provisions for packaging manufactured before the entry into force of the Directive. The...