Judgment_paragraph 49 · European Commission v Kingdom of Spain (C-151/12)

49In that regard, it is indeed appropriate to note that the Kingdom of Spain referred to those measures for the first time at the stage of the defence, which cannot be reconciled with the duty of loyal cooperation on Member States under Article 4(3) TEU. However, the present action concerns not a failure to fulfil the obligation to provide information but a failure to fulfil the obligation to transpose certain provisions of Directive 2000/60. The mere fact that the Kingdom of Spain did not inform the Commission during the pre-litigation procedure that the Directive was already transposed cannot be sufficient to prove the alleged failure to fulfil an obligation (see, to that effect, Case C-456/03 Commission v Italy [2005] ECR I-5335, paragraphs 46 and 47).