Brussels, 06/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - Unusually, the European Commission has given no information on the start of application of the directive on services in the internal market at the end of December 2009. Six member states (Bulgaria, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia), however, will not be in a position, before April 2010, to implement this, one of the most important Community legislative acts for the completion of the internal market, the controversy around which contributed to the “No” vote in the French referendum on the now dead Constitutional Treaty. According to a state-of-play report drafted by the Commission in December, a copy of which has been obtained by EUROPE, the above six countries have not, for the moment, passed any acts transposing the services directive. “And it was the member states which wanted to go further” on liberalising the internal services market, said German Social Democrat Evelyn Gebhardt, who was the European Parliament rapporteur on the directive, with some irony on Wednesday 6 January.
At this time, 11 member states (Denmark, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have adopted legislation incorporating the services directive into national law. Eight others (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Portugal) will finalise the national transposition process by the end of the first half of this year. “Given the complexity of the directive, implementation is pretty high”: it is expected that “two thirds of member states” will have transposed the directive “by the first quarter of 2010,” said a European official. The scope of the services directive does, indeed, involve considerable changes to member states' regional legal order. In Spain, for example, 47 national acts and 100 regional acts have had to be amended.
Currently busy gathering together the latest information submitted by member states, the Commission might decide quickly, in the coming weeks, to begin infringement proceedings against those member states what have not confirmed any transposition measures. Such a decision could be taken either by the outgoing Commission or by the new College - in which case, the decision would come at the end of January or start of February. Thereafter would follow a period when the Commission would have to check that national legislations are in line with the services directive. This is a long process which could also lead to further infringement proceedings. At the same time, the member states will launch the process of screening national legislations with regard to authorisation systems, requirements to evaluate, free provision of services and multi-disciplinary activities. This exercise will last all year and will be followed by a report by the Commission.
The services directive requires member states to set up one-stop shops where businesses can obtain information on national rules in force. Two thirds of member states have made their national contact points for the dissemination of information accessible via internet and, in some instances, allow certain operations to be conducted electronically. Eight member states have not yet reached this level of preparation: Ireland, Malta and Spain are not far away, but, in Italy, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, work has scarcely begun. The Commission, noting member states' “astonishingly high” level of preparation, will take some time to check what services the one-stop shops actually provide and their ability to work collaboratively. “Some member states have serious problems with the screening procedure and setting up one-stop shops,” Gebhardt said. On her suggestion, the Parliament internal market committee will bring together the national parliaments in the spring to share experiences and bring political pressure to bear so that the services directive can be swiftly and fully implemented in the EU. (M.B./transl.rt)