The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), announced in Brussels on Tuesday it had taken legal actions against Spain and Greece over breaching EU environment law.

In a press release issued by the EC, the EU executive said Spain were involved in two cases.

For the first, the EU executive asked Spain to comply with a ruling by the European Court of Justice, which condemned Spain in 2003 over a number of uncontrolled waste disposal sites.

These sites pose a threat to human health and the environment. Since the Court ruling, problems continued to persist with three sites.

In the second case, the EC was referring Spain to the European Court of Justice for failure to carry out an appropriate environmental impact assessment for the construction of an airport next to a protected area for birds.

Greece, on its part, was accused of violating EU waste management law on the island of Crete.

The EC said it took this legal action because the Greek authorities had failed to clean up an illegal rubbish dump, over which Greece was fined by the European Court of Justice in 2000, as well as a temporary waste storage site.

(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2005)