Greece has to pay a one-off fine of €5.5 million to the European Commission and a further 12.500 euros per day for non-enforcement of a 2014 Court of Justice of the European Union ruling on the issue of the operation of a landfill site located in the Zakynthos Marine National Park, the natural habitat of the Caretta-Caretta sea turtle, Greece has today ruled that Greece has failed to comply with its obligations under two directives in the waste sector.

Specifically, according to the decision of the European Union’s highest judicial body, Greece had failed to stop the operation of a landfill site located in the marine national park of Zakynthos, the natural habitat of the sea turtle “Caretta-Caretta”, while the site was saturated and dysfunctional, thus endangering health and the environment.

With regard to the case at hand, from 2014 to 2023, there was an exchange of correspondence between the European Commission and Greece regarding the measures taken by Greece to rehabilitate the Zakynthos landfill site and to comply with the 2014 decision.

The European Commission, considering that Greece had not yet taken the necessary measures to that end, sent it a letter of formal notice in 2017 and brought a new action for failure to fulfil obligations before the Court of Justice in 2024, on which today’s decision was adopted.

In today’s judgment, the Court finds that Greece has failed to fulfil its obligation to take all the measures necessary to comply with the 2014 Commission v Greece judgment.

In particular, the Court notes that, at the critical time specified in the letter of formal notice, namely 28 June 2017, Greece had neither provided for a settlement plan to continue the operation of the Zakynthos landfill site in accordance with the requirements of the Landfill Directive nor had it ceased the operation of the landfill site. Moreover, the Zakynthos landfill continued to receive waste until the end of 2017.

Consequently, the Court orders Greece to pay a penalty payment of EUR 12,500 per day of delay from the publication of today’s judgment until the date of execution of the 2014 judgment, and a lump sum of EUR 5,500,000 to the Commission.

The amounts of the penalties are justified by the gravity of the infringement. The infringement poses a serious risk to the environment and human health. In addition, the Court took into account the large number of judgments in which Greece had been found in the past to have failed to comply with its waste management obligations, the number of cases in which the Court of Justice of the EU found that the Member State concerned had failed to comply with judgments of the Court of Justice.