Brussels, 18/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - Member States from the EU have not succeeded in reaching the objectives set out for speeding up internal market rules into national law and have even stalled on the target deficit of 1.5% of non-transposed directives compared to those implemented by November 2005. This result is illustrated in the European Commission's latest Internal Market Scoreboard published by the European Commission on Tuesday. In July 2006 the transposition deficit - the percentage of Internal Market Directives that have not been implemented into national law - is now 1.9%, which is 0.3% up from a deficit of 1.6% in November 2005. This means that the positive trend of the past years has stalled. The 'new' Member States still perform better with an average transposition deficit of 1.5% compared to 2.2% for the 'old' Member States. However, their efforts seem to be slowing down like those of the other Member States. Denmark is the only exception with a deficit of only 0.5% and only 8 directives not transposed. Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said: "Member States have missed a golden opportunity…Instead of going the extra mile, they have relaxed their efforts and moved further away”. He concluded by urging “Member States to rediscover the eagerness that they were showing only six months ago. Implementing the backlog will reduce red tape across the EU, make for an even stronger internal market and ultimately help to deliver more jobs and growth in Europe”.
Only 14 out of 25 Member States remain below the 1.5% ceiling, compared to 17 in November 2005. Denmark has the lowest deficit, followed by Cyprus (1%; 17 non transposed directives (NTD). Hungary (1.1%; 19 NTD, Lithuania (1.2%, 19NTD), Slovenia 1.2%; 20 NTD and the United Kingdom (1.3%; 21 NTD). The three Member States that are above the 1.5% threshold are Malta (2.2%; 35 NTD), Germany (1.8%; 29 NTD) and Spain (1.7%; 28 NTD); - 19 Member States are now lagging behind their position six months ago. Apart from Luxembourg, all of those above the 1.5% have seen their situation worsen, particularly Italy, Portugal and the Czech Republic whose deficit increased by at least 0.5%; - Luxembourg is in last place with Italy and Greece (3.8% deficit; 62 NTD each) but did manage to improve this rate (- 0.6% compared to November 2005) and is rapidly expected to leave this bottom rating, explained the Commission. The Internal Market Strategy 2003-2006 called on Member States to halve their number of infringement cases by 2006, but not a single 'old' Member State has been able to achieve a 50% reduction. Only five 'old' Member States have reduced the number of infringement cases against them: Belgium, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland. Some Member States combine a bad transposition deficit with poor quality transposition and/or incorrect application of Internal Market rules. This is the case for Greece, Italy and Portugal. Figures for 'new' Member States cannot be compared with those for 'old' Member States, since figures for 'new' Member States are compared to November 2005 instead of April 2003. However, the situation in 'new' Member States seems to be more positive. Six new Member States have reduced the number of infringement proceedings over the past six months: the Czech Republic, Malta, the Slovak Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia. Nonetheless, the results in Poland and Cyprus are very concerning.
To resolve the infringement procedures at an earlier stage “Package meetings” between the Commission experts and Member States' authorities continue to be an efficient means, notes the last chapter in the scoreboard. 25 package meetings took place between July 2004 and July 2005. In almost 60% of cases, either a solution is found within 6 months or a decisive step forward is taken. The case flow in SOLVIT (the on-line problem solving network between national administrations, which deals with complaints about the incorrect application of EU rules by public authorities) continued to grow in 2005, but seems now in 2006 to have settled. SOLVIT has potential to resolve more cases, but lack of staff in a number of SOLVIT centres and a lack of awareness on the part of the citizens and businesses on what SOLVIT can do for them appear to prevent this potential from fully materialising. In conclusion the Commission says that results are beginning to be seen and notes that the 2004 Recommendation on transposition of Internal Market Directives summarised best practices in Member States and recommends other Member States to implement similar arrangements. Member States that have implemented the most recommendations also perform best as regards the timely transposition of Internal Market directives and vice-versa: 9 out of the 10 Member States than rank first in terms of implementation of recommendations also stay below the 1.5% transposition target deficit. In contrast, all 5 Member States that have implemented the fewest recommendations are above the 1.5% transposition target deficit.