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National courts may apply a national system of penalties contrary to the Directive concerning the posting of workers as long as it ensures proportionality of the penalties

The company CONVOI s. r. o., established in Slovakia and represented by NE, posted workers to a company established in Fürstenfeld (Austria). By a decision adopted in June 2018, on the basis of findings made during an inspection carried out on 24 January 2018, the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Hartberg-Fürstenfeld (administrative authority of the district of HartbergFürstenfeld, Austria) imposed a fine of EUR 54 000 on NE, for failure to comply with a number of obligations laid down by Austrian employment law, relating, in particular, to the retention and making available of wage and social security records. NE brought an action against that decision before the referring court, the Landesverwaltungsgericht Steiermark (Regional Administrative Court, Styria, Austria).

In October 2018, that court, questioning the conformity with EU law and, in particular, with the principle of proportionality set out inter alia in Article 20 of Directive 2014/67 1 of penalties such as those imposed by the Austrian legislation at issue, had brought the matter before the Court for a preliminary ruling. In its order of 19 December 2019, Bezirkshauptmannschaft HartbergFürstenfeld, 2 the Court had held that the combination of various elements of the Austrian system of penalties imposed for non-compliance with obligations – essentially administrative – to retain documents concerning the posting of workers was disproportionate.

Noting that, following that order, the national legislature did not amend the legislation at issue, and having regard to the solution adopted by the Court in the judgment of 4 October 2018, Link Logistik N&N, 3 the referring court decided to ask the Court whether and, if so, to what extent that legislation may be disapplied. Indeed, in that judgment of 4 October 2018, Link Logistik N&N, the Court had considered that a provision of EU law similar to Article 20 of Directive 2014/67 4 has no direct effect

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The United Kingdom should have taken account of the risk profiles and the types of customs control recommended to it by OLAF and the Commission

The European Union has abolished all quotas on imports of textiles and clothing including from China since 1 January 2005.

In 2007, 2009 and 2015, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) sent mutual assistance messages to Member States, informing them in particular of the risk of extreme undervaluation of imports of textiles and footwear from China by shell companies registered for the sole purpose of giving fraudulent transactions the appearance of legitimacy. OLAF asked all Member States to monitor their imports of such products, to carry out appropriate customs checks and to take adequate safeguard measures if there was any suspicion of artificially low invoiced prices.

To that end, OLAF developed a risk assessment tool based on EU-wide data. That tool, involving the calculation of an average derived from ‘cleaned average prices’, produces a ‘lowest acceptable price’ that is used as a risk profile or threshold enabling Member States’ customs authorities to detect values declared on importation that are particularly low, and thus imports presenting a significant risk of undervaluation.

In 2011 and 2014, the United Kingdom participated in monitoring operations conducted by the Commission and OLAF to counteract certain risks of undervaluation fraud, without however applying the lowest acceptable prices calculated in accordance with OLAF’s method or enforcing the additional payment demands issued by the United Kingdom authorities following such operations.

In several bilateral meetings, OLAF recommended that the competent United Kingdom authorities use EU-wide risk indicators, namely the lowest acceptable prices. According to OLAF, fraudulent imports were increasing significantly in the United Kingdom on account of the inadequate nature of the checks carried out by the United Kingdom customs authorities, encouraging the shift of fraudulent operations from other Member States to the United Kingdom. However, according to OLAF, the United Kingdom did not follow its recommendations, instead releasing the products concerned for free circulation in the internal market without conducting appropriate customs controls, with the result that a substantial proportion of the customs duties due were not collected or made available to the European Commission.

Consequently, taking the view that the United Kingdom had failed to enter in the accounts the correct amounts of customs duties and to make available to the Commission the correct amount of traditional own resources and own resources accruing from value added tax (‘VAT’) in respect of certain imports of textiles and footwear from China, the Commission brought an action for a declaration that the United Kingdom had failed to fulfil its obligations under EU legislation on control and supervision in relation to the recovery of own resources and under EU legislation on customs duty and on VAT.


 

On 15 March 2022, the PETI and JURI Committees jointly organise a public hearing on ‘the EU Green Prosecutor - a common toolbox for fighting environmental crime’. PETI Committee receives multiple petitions on man-made environmental issues which often point at the lack of efficiency and capacity of national authorities for detecting, investigation and prosecution of environmental crime.

Furthermore, criminal organisations and mafias threaten the conservation of biodiversity and environmental heritage. At the same time, their activity affects the health and safety of EU citizens, who become victims of arsons, landslides, illnesses related to air pollution, etc.


As revealed in petitions received, environmental crime jeopardises the EU Green Deal objectives, both in terms of negative environmental effects, and in terms of financial losses. It is associated with money laundering, corruption, forgery, trafficking, physical violence and murder, extending the effects far beyond the damage to the habitat.
The hearing will explore the shortcomings and challenges in the enforcement of EU environmental criminal law on the basis of petitions received, as well as new tools to tackle environmental crime, including the possible creation of a European Green Prosecutor Office.

• Link to the event's page

Dr John Stanton, Senior Lecturer in Law at Kingston University London, paid a courtesy call at the Ombudsman’s Office on Monday 7 March.

Dr Stanton is in Malta on an Erasmus exchange programme to deliver a number of talks at the University of Malta. He teaches Constitutional, Administrative and Human Rights Law, and his primary research interests concern local government, democracy and devolution. He also has a keen interest in Comparative Constitutional Law with a particular emphasis on the Constitution of Malta. He has worked as a visiting lecturer in law at the University of Malta since 2018, and in 2019 he published a paper in the Journal of International and Comparative Law exploring the Maltese legal system.

Dr Stanton was met by the Commissioner for Education within the Ombudsman’s Office, Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent A. De Gaetano and former Ombudsman Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino.

Dr Stanton was accompanied by former EU Commissioner and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Law of the University of Malta, Dr Tonio Borg.

Si è svolto il giorno martedì 22 febbraio 2022 il webinar riguardante "LA PARTECIPAZIONE DEI CITTADINI ALLA VITA DEMOCRATICA DELLE ISTITUZIONI: IL RUOLO DEL DIFENSORE CIVICO" su iniziativa del Difensore civico della Regione Lazio dott. Marino Fardelli.

Il Difensore civico ha partecipato all’incontro in videoconferenza, evidenziando ruolo e compiti di tale organo di garanzia in ordine alla tutela extragiudiziale dei diritti e degli interessi del cittadino nei confronti della Pubblica Amministrazione alla luce della legge provinciale istitutiva (l.p. 28/1982) e di altre leggi che ne hanno ampliato le competenze anche per quanto attiene il rimedio giustiziale del ricorso al Difensore civico avverso il diniego di accesso agli atti. In particolare il Difensore civico ha ricordato la posizione di autonomia che connota tale figura, in quanto organo super partes, svincolato da qualsiasi rapporto di soggezione gerarchica o funzionale, chiamato a svolgere un ruolo di mediazione, di conciliazione, di terzietà attiva tra i soggetti interessati e le pubbliche amministrazioni al fine di pervenire ad una composizione consensuale delle questioni sottoposte alla sua attenzione. Ha posto, infine, l’attenzione sui casi trattati, involgenti un ampio ventaglio di materie, di dubbia classificazione ricognitiva esaustiva, posto che il cittadino può prospettare al Difensore civico le più svariate questioni. Nè dobbiamo dimenticare che l’azione del Difensore civico si pone in via prioritaria a difesa dei diritti fondamentali del cittadino contro ogni forma di discriminazione.​

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