Brussels, 27/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Charlie McCreevy, presented the results of the 2nd report on the implementation of the strategy for the internal market 2003-2006, which will feed into discussions on the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy. Since May 2004, the shortfall in the transposition of European directives into the internal law of the Member States fell from 7.1% to 3.6%, while eight countries, which were all members of the EU before the latest wave of enlargement, saw a fall in the number of infringement proceedings relating to them. Mr McCreevy did, however, acknowledge that “the situation is not entirely rosy”, and that serious efforts are still needed, including by the adoption underway of key legislative proposals.
“Internal market means Lisbon Strategy. Lisbon Strategy is synonymous with our economic future, our prosperity in a globalised world”, said Charlie McCreevy, adding: “the internal market cannot work unless the Member States transpose directives into their national law in time. I'm not talking about some kind of 'Brussels Diktat', but European legislation and timetables to implement what the Member States themselves accepted from the Council”.
According to the Commissioner, the updated scoreboard on the state of play with the transposition of European directives into national law brings “good news”. The average transposition deficit of European legislation is down from 7.1% at the time of enlargement to 3.6% now. The scoreboard identifies the proportion of European directives which should have been transposed into the internal law of the Member States out of all directives adopted. “It is still too high”, said Charlie McCreevy, reiterating the objective of 1.5% for the transposition deficit, which was set by the Member States themselves.
Lithuania and Spain have done the best out of all the Member States. With transposition deficits of 1% and 1.3% respectively, they are at the top of the transposition leaderboard and are the only countries beating the 1.5% objective. All of the new Member States have reduced their transposition deficit, despite the Czech Republic being in last place with a score of 9.6%. Germany and France, which often come in for criticism in this area, have made progress, as have Hungary and the Netherlands, but are invited to keep up the good work. The report lastly points to a deterioration in the situation in four Member States (Denmark, Finland, Ireland and the United Kingdom), which are usually to be found at the top of the list. Charlie McCreevy calls upon them to “reverse this disappointing trend”.
The 2003-2006 strategy for the internal market requires a reduction of 50% of infringement proceedings by 2006, via better application of the European legislation, prevention and use of alternative methods to settle disputes, such as SOLVIT. The on-line network SOLVIT, which is present in all 25 Member States plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, promotes collaboration between national administrations and pragmatic solutions in cases of incorrect application of community law. On the infringement proceedings, eight Member States (Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands and Portugal) have made progress towards the objective. The Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden) are the top three countries in this. The report indicates, however, that “much remains to be done”. The situation of Italy, which was already at the bottom of the table with 149 proceedings underway against it, has deteriorated further.
Just because a Member State includes a European directive in its internal law does not necessarily mean that it is applying it. When asked about the possibilities of recourse in case of infringement other than the cumbersome system of taking the matter to the Court of Justice and the lightweight system involving SOLVIT, Charlie McCreevy said that “the Member States cannot not transpose. Some Member States frustrate the objectives of the directives by various administrative means”. On the possibility of publishing all reasoned opinions in order to know exactly what the Commission is accusing the Member States of, Mr McCreevy said that he was not aware of such a problem, but that he would think about it.
The Commission is also pleased to note that in 2004, two thirds of desired legislative acts were adopted in full. Charlie McCreevy referred to a few “positive signs of integration”: the adoption of 40 of the 42 measures contained in the action plan on financial services, and the adoption of a new community framework on procedures for awarding public contracts. Despite these encouraging examples, however, the Commission feels that “the pace of market integration is not fast enough (…). The EU must step on the accelerator”. Mr McCreevy spoke of the proposed directive on the patentability of software as an “example of key measures which have been blocked in the Council and the European Parliament”.