Commission Starts Legal Action Against Eight Member States over Electronic Waste and Hazardous Substances

      On 17 October 2007, the Commission announced that it was to start legal action against eight Member States for not properly transposing EU legislation to tackle waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and the hazardous substances contained in such products.

      Those countries include the three Baltic States, which, in the opinion of the Commission, have not correctly transposed certain provisions of the Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment. Please not that Lithuania also has not correctly transposed Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous materials in electrical and electronic equipment. The Commission is carrying out compliance checks on relevant legislation in other member states.

      The said directives seek to reduce hazardous waste and to increase the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment that is recycled. The aim is to limit the total amount of waste that is discarded.