Brussels, 18/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The number of infringement procedures launched by the European Commission was up slightly in 2015 compared to the previous year, from 1347 to 1368, according to the latest annual report on the control of the application of EU law, which was published on Monday 18 July.
The largest member states of the EU were the most likely to come under fire from the Commission, either for late or incorrect transposition of the directives and regulations. The environment and transport sectors saw the highest number of infringement procedures and Italy was bottom of the class, followed by Germany.
Italy is the subject of 89 open infringement proceedings, followed by Germany (88), Spain (83), France (80) and Poland (80). As of 31 December 2015, Greece was the subject of 82 proceedings. The United Kingdom, which may begin negotiations to leave the EU (EUROPE 11593), is a long way behind with “just” 48. With 21 infringement proceedings, Croatia is the model student, but this could be explained by the fact that it only relatively recently joined the EU. Denmark also appears to be particularly compliant with EU law, with just 23 proceedings.
As for the areas of the infringements, the environment comes out top with 276 proceedings open, followed by mobility and transport (241), financial stability, financial services and the Capital Markets Union (172) and the internal market and industry (129). Health and food safety are the sectors in which the member states are most likely to be in line with EU law (25).
Even so, the number of infringements is considerably below what the Commission registered in 2011, when there were 1775 proceedings open. This can be explained by the preference of the Commission to engage in structured dialogue with the member state in question ahead of opening proceedings, but also to the more general use of the 'EU Pilot' instrument, which allows infringements of EU law to be rectified at an early stage. The use of the notification procedure, prior to adoption, of the technical draft regulations applicable to products and services in the information society are also believed to have helped to reduce the number of infringement proceedings. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)