Brussels, 01/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - The EU directive on services within the single market did not figure on the agenda of the Monday 1 March meeting of EU member states' competitiveness ministers (although it was on the February ECOFIN Council's agenda, see EUROPE 10077). This omission has come about despite the symbolic nature of the directive for achieving a genuine single market, the problems encountered by six member states and the upcoming European Council later this month that will be examining the EU's growth strategy fro 2010 (see EUROPE 10050). Perhaps the reason for the omission is the Spanish Presidency's busy agenda? The president-in-exercise of the Competitiveness Council, Spanish Minister Miguel Sebastián, had to leave the meeting early to go to open the CeBIT event in Hannover (Germany), which is focussing on Spain this year.
Asked about the European Commission's work this year to ensure the Services Directive is applied throughout the European Union, EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier said he would be meeting all the member states officials responsible for ensuring the directive is implemented in their countries. Suggesting that social networking website Facebook could be used for mutual assessment of domestic legislation to implement the Services Directive, he said that to date, some 21 one-stop-shops existed where business can get information about the rules and comply with administration. The commissioner has started a European tour, travelling to London on Monday evening. He will be in Berlin next week. Asked whether the Commission was concerned about tensions between Greece and Germany as a result of the budget crisis in Greece and a call for a boycott of German products in Greece following Chancellor Merkel's comments that Germany would not be providing financial aid to Greece, Barnier said that the crisis could generate nationalist responses and it was important to trust that the single market would get countries out of crisis. Protectionism is a dead-end, he warned.
Presenting the latest version of its internal market league table on Monday, the Commission was pleased that member states have achieved their best six-monthly results to date in transposing EU single market legislation into domestic law. In November 2009, the percentage of transposed directives not transposed on time fell to 0.7%, below the 1% upper limit set by the European Council in 2007. Seven countries, namely Austria, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic have a backlog of over 1% of EU directives. The member states are urged to reduce the average transposition delays (an average of nine months late across the EU). Bottom of the league are Luxembourg and Greece with five and six directives outstanding for more than two years now. The member states against which the greatest number of legal proceedings have been launched over failure to transpose EU directives are Italy (100 cases), Spain and Greece (93 cases each). Cyprus is top of the league. Of the more than 1,500 cases before the European Court of Justice over failure to implement EU law, taxation and the environment top the popularity league, each accounting for 22% of the cases. (M.B./transl.fl)