b. Wallonie and subsequent cases A more noted case of this nature is Wallonie,24 which concerned a directive limiting the circumstances in which waste disposal could be carried out without a permit. A national law, adopted prior to the transposition deadline, exempted operators engaged in waste disposal as part of the industrial process from the requirement for a permit and the referring court regarded this as contrary, in normative terms, to the directive in question. Asked whether Member States were precluded from adopting measures contrary to the directive during the period prescribed for its transposition, the CJEU said: ‘Since the purpose of such a period is, in particular, to give Member States the necessary time to adopt transposition measures, they cannot be faulted for not having transposed the directive into their internal legal order before expiry of that period (…) Nevertheless, it is during the transposition period that the Member States must take the measures necessary to ensure that the result prescribed by the directive is achieved at the end of that period (…) Although the Member States are not obliged to adopt those measures before the end of the period prescribed for transposition, it follows from the second paragraph of Article 5 in conjunction with the third paragraph of Article 189 of the Treaty and from the directive itself that during that period they must refrain from taking any measures liable seriously to compromise the result prescribed’ (paragraphs 43-46). By Article 5 ‘the Treaty’, the CJEU is referring to Article 5 of the then Treaty Establishing the European Community, which now takes the form of Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union, providing that ‘the Member States shall take any appropriate measure, general or particular, to ensure fulfilment of the obligations arising out of the Treaties or resulting from the acts of the institutions of the Union’ (the provision which also forms the basis for the doctrine of direct effect). By Article 188 of the Treaty, the CJEU is referring to what is now Article 288 TFEU, which provides that Directives are binding on Member States as to the result to be achieved but leave to them the form and methods for achieving this. These same foundations are then used in subsequent cases developing the Wallonie principle, including the case of Adelener,25 which raised the question of the role of courts in interpreting legislation prior to the implementation deadline. The CJEU said: ‘Given that all the authorities of the Member States are subject to the obligation to ensure that provisions of Community law take full effect (…) the obligation to refrain from taking measures, as set out in the previous paragraph, applies just as much to national courts. It follows that, from the date upon which a directive has entered into force, the courts of the Member States must refrain as far as possible from interpreting domestic law in a manner which might seriously compromise, after the period for transposition has expired, attainment of the objective pursued by that directive (paragraphs 121-123) (emphasis added). 24 25 Case C-129/96 Inter-Environnement Wallonie ASBL v Région wallonne (ECLI:EU:C:1997:216). Case C-212/04 Adeneler ECLI:EU:C:2006:443. 14