EMEA News
European Commission Proposes Fines for Romania Over Sulfur Rules Failure
The European Commission Thursday asked the Court of Justice of the EU to impose fines on Romania for failing to transpose EU rules on the sulfur content of marine fuels into its national legislation.
The Commission said that Romania has not aligned its rules with EU Directive 2012/33/EU, which mandated a reduction in the sulfur content of certain liquid fuels including heavy fuel oil, gas oil, marine gas oil, and marine diesel oil used within the EU.
Romania acknowledged that it has not transposed the EU rules onto its own legislation, according to the Commission.
First published in the Official Journal of the European Union on November 17, 2012, Member States' had been given a deadline of June 18, 2014 to bring their legislation into compliance.
The Commission asked the Court of Justice to impose a fine of €38,042.6 euros ($40,450) for each day until Romania fully transposes the EU laws, an amount said to take into account the seriousness of the infringement, as well as Romania's ability to pay.
This fine would be paid effective from the date of the Court's ruling, the Commission said.
The final amount of the fine will now be decided by the Court, but cannot exceed the amount recommended by the Commission.
Last year Ship & Bunker reported that the EU was considering legal action against several countries that had failed to transpose rules on sulfur levels in fuels.
