Report from the European Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on the public lending right in the European Union (16 September 2002)

In September 2002, the European Commission published a report on the public lending right in the European Union (Download PDF file) as harmonized in the Directive 92/100 on the Rental and Lending Right and on Certain Rights Related to Copyright.
In its report, the Commission concluded that “only partial harmonization has been achieved and the legislative measures applied by Member States still vary to a large extent. Not all Member States have changed their law and some have only made minor changes (...). It is far from obvious that all Member States have complied with their minimum obligations under Article 5, notably to provide at least authors with remuneration for the lending of their works by certain public institutions”.

In July 2004,  the Commission, as the guardian of the treaties, decided to formally request information from Spain, France, Italy Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal about their national implementation of the public lending right. This is the first stage in the infringement procedure under Article 226 of the Treaty.

In December 2004, the Commission brought actions before the European Court of Justice against Spain, Ireland and Portugal for failure to implement the Directive. 

The Commission had already pursued a complaint against Belgium which resulted in a ruling by the European Court of Justice of 16 October 2003 (case C-433/02) declaring that Belgium has failed to fulfill its obligations under Articles 1 and 5 of the Rental and Lending directive.