The Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) confirmed that previous governments did not act in the process of closing landfills. This was stated by the Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (SNS nominee) in response to the verdict.
Photo: SITA, Milan Illík
Tomáš Tarab’s Minister of the Environment
However, he clarified that the judgment does not impose any financial sanctions on Slovakia. At the same time, the Envirorezort is working on legislative changes and measures so that Slovakia fulfills its obligations as soon as possible.
The judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU, which concerns the dispute between the European Commission and the Slovak Republic, says that Slovakia did not have 21 landfills reclaimed and closed in 2019.
They do not meet the requirements of the EU landfill directive. “I want to assure you that we negotiate intensively with the European Commission and inform it on a regular basis. As of Thursday, we have only a few landfills left unresolved that require a specific solution,” explained Taraba.
He states that Slovakia does not have a basic waste management infrastructure built due to the incompetence of the previous governments. “The ministry, under my leadership, is comprehensively solving the environmental infrastructure for waste that can no longer be recycled and must be landfilled, including toxic waste,” said the minister. He pointed out the accelerated construction of modern waste disposal incinerators. “The judgment of the Court of Justice only shows what the situation will be if we don’t have additional facilities and we have to close all the landfills,” Taraba added.
According to the 1999 directive, EU member states had to close the old landfills by July 2009. In 2017, the Commission sent a formal notice to Slovakia for non-compliance with the directive, followed by a reasoned opinion in March 2019.
Slovakia was obliged to either close and remove non-compliant landfills as soon as possible, or bring them into compliance with the directive. It was also mandatory to take measures to ensure the rapid closure of all landfills that were not granted permission to continue operating.
In 2023, the Commission initiated legal proceedings against Slovakia and asked the Court of Justice of the EU to determine whether Slovakia had breached its obligations towards the EU. Slovakia documented in court that some landfills were definitively shut down in the period from August 2022 to July 2023.
On Thursday, the court concluded that Slovakia cannot rely on the actions of the operators of waste landfills in an effort to comply with the obligations and deadlines that the country has under EU law.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
