Implementation of Single Market rules remains broadly stable and mediocre among Member States, according to the 2020 edition of the Single Market Scoreboard published on Friday 3 July.
“The best performing countries in 2019 were Latvia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Slovakia, while least improvements were observed in Spain, Italy, France and Austria”, summarises the European Commission.
In general, the institution notes that, despite an improvement in the transposition of EU legislation (a 15% decrease in the transposition deficit), the number of infringement proceedings is not decreasing, still due to either “incomplete” or “incorrect” transposition. The average delay in transposition is 11.5 months. However, there is cause for satisfaction: the transposition of consumer legislation has improved.
In 2019, the number of single market infringements increased (800 pending cases), reaching the same level as in November 2014. With 57 cases, double the EU average, Spain has the highest number of outstanding cases. The sectors with the highest number of Single Market infringement cases are environment (28%), transport (17%) and taxation (10%).
Administrative cooperation has increased by 52% in one year through the use of the Internal Market Information System (IMI). The same positive trend was observed for the ‘Your Europe’ portal, a site providing information and advice to citizens and businesses, whose consultations also increased by 52%.
To a lesser extent, the use of SOLVIT, the online out-of-court dispute resolution network for consumers and businesses, increased by 4%. The big black spot remains public procurement. The proportion of contracts awarded when there was only one bidder shows that more than three-quarters of the countries “underperformed”, according to the institution. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)