Brussels, 19/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 February, the Commission welcomed the efforts made by member states to ensure that deadlines are kept for transposing directives. Publishing its 15th scoreboard on the internal market, the Commission states that, over the past six months, member states have “performed better than ever in transposing EU rules into national law”. According to Commission data, the EU's average transposition deficit (the percentage of directives on the internal market that have not been transposed in time into the national bodies of law) has fallen from 6.3% in 1997 to a “record new level of 0.6%, i.e. below the 1% target agreed by the European Heads of State and Government in 2007 and close to the 0.5% deficit proposed in the Single Market Act in April 2011”.
In this edition of the scoreboard, the best performers are Ireland, Malta, Estonia and Sweden, who managed to implement the highest number of directives into their national legislation. If one takes all the parameters (transposition, infringement, deficit, etc.) into account, however, Romania, Estonia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Lithuania obtain the best results on the whole, the Commission states. Member states also managed to reduce the total number of directives that are badly transposed (with the conformity deficit shrinking from 0.7% to 0.6%).
“With regard to the application of EU law, the number of infringements is continuing to decrease, very likely due to the introduction of mechanisms to solve problems of non-compliance with EU law earlier in the process”, the Commission is pleased to state. Compared to November 2007, the number of open infringements is down by 38%. Italy accounts for the highest number of infringement proceedings launched by the Commission, followed by Spain and Greece. The majority of cases continue to be mainly in the areas of taxation and the environment.
Still according to the press release, “today, member states take on average nine and a half months to transpose EU directives after the transposition deadline has expired”. The number of directives more than two years beyond their transposition deadline is on the rise, with five member states being concerned in particular: Belgium (4 directives), Germany (2), Italy (1), Poland (2) and the United Kingdom (2).
When it comes to infringements, the average number of open infringement proceedings continues to stand at 31 cases per member state. Italy accounts for ten times more proceedings than Lithuania, the country with the least infringement proceedings opened against it. Finally, the Commission states, although every member state must comply immediately with the rulings of the Court of Justice, the time allowed for compliance is often very long: over 17.4 months on average and even nearly two years for Spain, Ireland and France. (SP/transl.jl)