In Case C-181/20 VYSOČINA WIND a.s. v Česká republika – Ministerstvo životního prostředí the CJEU has unusually annulled part of Directive 2012/19 on Waste Electrical and electronic equipment (the so-called ‘WEEE Directive’).
It was not in dispute that Article 13(1) WEEE Directive obliges the Member States to require producers to finance the costs relating to the management of waste from photovoltaic panels provided that they are panels placed on the market after the expiry of the period for transposition of that directive on 14 February 2014, and that, for ‘historical waste’, from photovoltaic panels placed on the market before 13 August 2005, the Member States may impose that obligation on users. The question arises however as to the application of that financing obligation in the case of waste from photovoltaic panels placed on the market between 13 August 2005 and 14 February 2014.
The Court held [45] that Article 13(1) must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which imposes the obligation to finance the costs relating to the management of waste from photovoltaic panels placed on the market after 13 August 2005 on the users of those panels and not on their producers. However, [56] before the adoption of the WEEE Directive the EU legislature had left Member States a choice in determining the allocation of the costs relating to the management of waste from PV Panels. Subsequently, it decided to establish a rule under which those costs must, in all Member States, be borne by producers, including in relation to products already placed on the market by the latter at a time when that earlier EU legislation was in force. That new rule therefore applies retroactively, and, [59] producers were unable to foresee, when designing the photovoltaic panels, that they would subsequently be required to provide for the financing of the costs relating to the management of waste from those panels. That unforseeability, in conclusion, was held to violate the principle of legal certainty.
gavc law - geert van calster 