Judgment_paragraph 21 · Commission of the European Communities v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (C-6/04)

21Under the third paragraph of Article 249 EC, a directive is binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but leaves to the national authorities the choice of form and methods for implementing the directive in question in domestic law. However, in accordance with settled case-law, while the transposition of a directive into domestic law does not necessarily require that the content of the directive be incorporated formally and verbatim in express, specific legislation and, depending on its content, a general legal context may be adequate for the purpose, that is on condition that that context does indeed guarantee the full application of the directive in a sufficiently clear and precise manner (see, inter alia, Case 363/85 Commission v Italy [1987] ECR 1733, paragraph 7, Case C-361/88 Commission v Germany [1991] ECR I-2567, paragraph 15, and Case C-58/02 Commission v Spain [2004] ECR I-621, paragraph 26).