Instruments of European law and questions concerning their implementation at national level as exemplified by water law, immission control law and waste law

As already noted by Breuerl in 1993, there are more and more instances of conflict between German and European environmental law. The number of cases lost by the Federal Republic before the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) on charges of inadequate implementation of EC directives stood at an impressive 28 by the end of the year 20002. As primary and secondary EC law takes precedence over the law of Member States at least in principle3, national legislation in those areas covered by EC law is thus bound to follow European specifications. The contradiction in practice is seen especially in environmental law, where the opening of proceedings against the Federal Republic for violations of contract has recently given rise to repeated accusations by the EU4 that the Federal Republic has not, or has improperly incorporated the respective EC directives into its national environmental legislation.