New EU infringement proceedings against Hungary

The European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Hungary last week over the country’s new electronic toll collection (ETC) system and the unsatisfactory implementation of several EU directives, the MTI news agency reports.

The EC also found that Hungary’s environmental protection product fee is incompatible with EU law, data published on the EC’s website showed this Tuesday, the financial website portfolio.hu reports.

Brussels has started infringement proceedings against Hungary over the ETC system for the country gave the job of establishing and operating the system to a consortium of two companies without a public procurement procedure.

EC officials have been in contact with Hungarian authorities regarding this issue since last April, but Budapest failed to convince Brussels it had not needed public procurement in this case. The EC also said that the environmental protection product fee is also incompatible with EU law.

New infringement procedures were opened against Hungary for its failure to properly implement the EU directives on driving licenses and cross-border health services. Letters of formal notice were sent to eight other member states last week.