51It should be noted that the EU legislature, conscious of the scope of the infrastructure work required for the application of the Directive and the costs of its full implementation, granted the Member States a period of several years to carry out their obligations, which in this case expired on 31 December 2005. In any event, according to settled case-law, a Member State cannot plead difficulties in its domestic legal order to justify a failure to observe obligations arising under EU law (see, to that effect, judgments in Commission v Greece, C‑407/09, EU:C:2011:196, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited, and in Commission v Ireland, EU:C:2012:834, paragraph 71).
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