EUROPEAN POLITICS FUNDAMENTALS — Chapter 2, Exercise 1
Tracing an Infringement Procedure
====================================================================

QUESTION:
A member state ignores the Commission's own formal notice and
reasoned opinion regarding a law that breaches EU environmental
legislation. List, in order, the remaining real steps available to
the Commission, and name the real financial consequence a member
state risks at the final stage.

SOLUTION:

Since the letter of formal notice (stage 1) and the reasoned opinion
(stage 2) have both already been issued and ignored, the remaining
real steps under Article 258 TFEU are:

  1. The Commission refers the case to the Court of Justice of the
     European Union (CJEU).
  2. The CJEU rules on whether the member state has, in fact, failed
     to fulfil its obligations under EU law.
  3. If the CJEU rules against the member state and it still fails to
     comply with that ruling, the Commission can bring a second case
     under Article 260 TFEU specifically seeking financial penalties.
  4. The CJEU may then impose a periodic penalty payment (a real,
     recurring daily or periodic fine) and/or a lump sum penalty.

The real financial consequence at the final stage is a periodic
penalty payment — the same real mechanism used against Poland,
fined €1 million per day from 27 October 2021 for continued
non-compliance with a judicial-independence ruling.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
---------------------------
The exercise tests whether the reader can extend the three-stage
Article 258 procedure described in the chapter into its real,
separate follow-up mechanism (Article 260) once a CJEU ruling itself
is ignored — a genuinely important distinction, since Article 258
itself doesn't directly impose fines; it only establishes that a
breach occurred. The financial penalty is a second, separate legal
step triggered only by continued non-compliance with that first
ruling, exactly as happened in the real Poland case.