This Friday, the 21st, the European Commission demanded that the Government of Portugal correctly apply a directive that concerns minimum energy requirements in products that are offered for sale.
In a statement, the community executive announced that it sent the Government a reasoned opinion for “failing to effectively comply” with European Union (EU) rules on “ecodesign and energy labeling of products”.
The European Commission reminded the Portuguese authorities that each country in the political-economic bloc “is responsible for monitoring its own markets” and must “ensure that only products that comply with the applicable rules” are offered for sale.
Specifically, Portugal did not apply community rules regarding energy labeling, a requirement that aims to give consumers the information they need to purchase products.
The European Commission considered that Portugal did not comply with the minimum rules to put these products on sale, so in June this year it sent a letter to the Government.
The Government responded two months ago, but the letter received “did not allow the Commission to conclude that all obligations had been fulfilled”, namely testing the products and giving them adequate energy labels.
Therefore, from today the Commission gives the Government two months to implement the required changes or it will refer the case to the EU Court of Justice.
The European Commission also warned Portugal that it must correctly transpose a European directive that changes the rules for handling substances with dangers associated with health and the environment.
The European directive included more than 11,000 industrial facilities in the EU that use dangerous substances and store them in high quantities, from petrochemical industries to refineries and medicine production.
The European Commission warned Portugal about non-compliance with this directive in December 2024 and to this day considered that it has yet to be implemented, even though the Government “has resolved some problems”.
If there is no “satisfactory response” from the Portuguese authorities, the case will also be referred to the EU Court of Justice.