Brussels, 21/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - In its progress report on Member States' transposition into their own legislation of the EU Services Directive 2006/123/EC, the European Commission says that despite progress in recent months by several Member States in several areas, key priorities identified in the previous progress report remain in place. The new report will be submitted on Tuesday 26 May 2010 to EU competitiveness ministers. Ireland and Portugal have not yet finalised their draft transposition laws. A 'Single Point of Contact' (SPC) is to be set up to provide companies with information about national laws on service provision and to enable people to fulfil various administrative tasks. Five Member States have not yet set up SPCs, namely Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. These shortcomings were also identified at the March 2010 Competitiveness Council (see EUROPE 10189).
Twenty Member States have decided to introduce one over-arching law to transpose all aspects of the Services Directive. The Commission explains that since February 2010, seven Member States have introduced such a law, namely Belgium, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Over-arching laws are being prepared in Ireland and Portugal and national parliaments are examining such laws in Austria, Cyprus and Luxembourg. Work is continuing in France. France and Germany are the only countries to have opted to adapt existing laws. Twenty-two SPCs 'seem to be in place,' explains the report. In fourteen countries (Germany, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom), administrative formalities can be completed at SPCs.
Peer assessment. Alongside the transposition process, a brand-new type of peer assessment is being carried out of Member States' legislation to check it conforms with the Services Directive. The Spanish Presidency will be reporting on Tuesday on how the peer assessment is going. It says that Member States broadly support the work of clusters of five Member States, work that was completed at the end of March 2010. We have learnt that Belgium is not happy with the European Commission attending meetings of the clusters of Member States. Another issues arising from the peer assessment is that Member States disagree on how rules not specifically covered by the directive should be dealt with, like public authorities' decisions to close roads to traffic. According to the Spanish Presidency, Member States believe that it should be politicians that are involved in the peer assessment rather than officials and the initiative could spark off other such moves in the services sector. In December, the European Commission will publish its final report in this connection. (M.B. trans fl)