The European Commission calls on Cyprus and another 11 member states to to complete the transposition into national law of the Directive on credit servicers and credit purchasers, noting that if the countries don’t take the necessary measures it could refer the cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case is included in the European Commission’s July package of infringement decisions.
Cyprus is also one of nine member states that received letters of formal notice asking them to complete the transposition into national law of amendments to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive.
Also, all 27 member states, including Cyprus, received letters of formal notice from the Commission for their failure to meet waste collection and recycling targets.
A letter of formal notice is the first stage of an infringement procedure regarding cases of non compliance of member states with EU law. If member states do not address the shortcomings in time, the Commission can send a reasoned opinion. If once a
gain the response is not satisfactory, the Commission can appeal to the Court of Justice which can impose fines on member states.
Most cases are closed without ending up at the Court of Justice. For example, this package includes 72 cases which have been closed by the Commission since the issues identified were addressed. Five of these cases are related to Cyprus, and deal with internal market, health and food safety, environment, mobility and transport and communications and technology.
Credit servicers and credit purchasers
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The European Commission decided to send reasoned opinions to Cyprus (INFR(2024)001), Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Finland for the incomplete transposition of the Directive on credit servicers and credit purchasers.
The main objective of Directive 2021/2167 is to enable credit servicers and credit purchasers to operate on European Union wide scale, whilst firmly safeguarding borrowers’ rights. The dir
ective requires, for example, that credit purchasers and credit servicers act in good faith, fairly and professionally with borrowers and communicate with them in a way that does not constitute harassment, coercion or undue influence.
The 12 member states that received a reasoned opinion now have two months to reply and take the necessary measures. Otherwise, the Commission may decide to refer the cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Amendments to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive
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The Commission also decided to open an infringement procedure by sending letters of formal notice to Cyprus (INFR(2024)2176), Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia for failing to transpose completely the amendments to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (Directive 2014/59/EU, ‘BRRD’) introduced by Regulation (EU) 2022/2036, which concern the prudential treatment of global systemically important institutions and the loss absorbing and recapitalis
ation capacity of banking groups.
The changes brought about by Regulation (EU) 2022/2036 to BRRD are important for ensuring full alignment in the EU with the Financial Stability Board’s standards on Total Loss Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) for global systemically important institutions (G-SIIs). In particular, the changes are necessary for properly reflecting the exposure of EU G-SIIs to their subsidiaries located in third countries and for further improving the ability of the largest EU banking groups to withstand financial shocks. In addition, the changes should achieve full harmonisation of the prudential treatment of internal resources for loss absorption and recapitalisation of intermediate entities in a banking group, which is important for the resolvability of banks.
In the absence of transposition of these technical but important measures, it will not be possible to achieve the necessary level of harmonisation in the EU’s unified framework for the banking sector. The Commission is therefore letters of f
ormal notice to the nine member states which now have two months to respond and address the shortcomings raised by the Commission. In the absence of a satisfactory response, the Commission may decide to issue a reasoned opinion.
Waste collection and recycling targets
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The Commission decided finally to open an infringement procedure by sending letters of formal notice to all member states (including Cyprus (INFR(2024)2131)) for failing to meet waste collection and recycling targets.
Based on the latest available data reported by Member States, all have failed to meet several waste collection and recycling targets laid down under the current EU waste legislation.
The Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC on waste as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/851) sets legally binding targets for preparing for reuse and recycling of municipal waste. A total of 18 member states (Cyprus, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portuga
l, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and Sweden) failed to meet 50% target for 2020 of preparing for reuse and recycling of municipal waste (such as paper, metal, plastic and glass).
In parallel, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (Directive 94/62/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/852) applies to all packaging distributed within the European market and any resulting packaging waste, regardless of where it is used. By 31 December 2008, it required that between 55% and 80% of all packaging waste must be recycled. The established recycling goals for various materials include 60% for glass, 60% for paper and cardboard, 50% for metals, 22.5% for plastics, and 15% for wood but many of these targets were missed.
Furthermore, the Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (Directive 2012/19/EU as amended by Directive (UE) 2024/884) requires the separate collection and proper treatment of WEEE and sets targets for their collection, recovery and recycling. The minimum collection rate to be ac
hieved annually by the Member States is 65% of the average weight of electrical and electronic equipment placed on the market in the three preceding years in the Member State concerned, or alternatively 85% of WEEE generated on the territory of that Member State. The majority of Member States failed to collect sufficient WEEE separately and therefore missed the EU collection target.
Member States should boost their implementation efforts in order to meet the abovementioned obligations. In that respect, Member States could rely on the country-specific recommendations identified in the 2023 Waste Early Warning Report. This will also help Member States to meet the forthcoming targets of 2025, 2030 and 2035, established by the recent amendments of the EU waste legislation.
The Commission is therefore sending letters of formal notice to each of the 27 Member States which now have two months to respond.
Source: Cyprus News Agency