Brussels, 01/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - In his presentation of the results from the most recent internal market scoreboard on Thursday, Charlie McCreevy, declared that he was very happy to be able to say that he had the best results ever in the EU. The Commissioner in charge of the internal market said that for the first time the average deficit for transposition of European legislation into internal member state law had fallen to under 1.5%, the objective set by member states and was now around 1.2%. He explained that this level stood at 1.9% in July 2006 (EUROPE 9235). Efforts still need to be made, however, on reducing the number of infringement procedures.
All member states have caught up in this area. 19 member states are under the 1.5% level. Denmark and Latvia are in joint first place with a shortfall of five directives not transposed. Only four member states are clearly above the average (Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg and Italy). Linking these good results partly to the “Better Regulation” initiative, which led to a reduction in the European legislative body, McCreevy evoked the possibility of changing the 1.5% objective set by member states. He indicated that he was aware that the German presidency was thinking about an initiative of this kind and that it was certainly something that he would support. The Commission also believes that implementation of the recommendations of 2004 on transposition of the internal market directives had clearly helped improve the situation.
Charlie McCreevy did not, however, want to be overly optimistic and referred to the too high number of member states that are not correctly applying rules at a national level. He indicated that 8 member states had reduced the number of infringement procedures against them and the Commission notes that Luxembourg and Denmark are making the most effort to find a rapid solution to the infringements. With 161 procedures opened against it, Italy is once again at the bottom of the European class, followed by Spain: 109, France, 95, Greece, 91 and Germany 80. The Commission is also concerned by the clear increase in the number of infringement procedures launched in 2006 against Poland. From a sectoral point of view, half the infringement procedures involve the environment, transport, energy and tax. This is why the Commissioner asked why procedures went on for year and that what counted was tackling the problems as soon as possible. He said that he did not think things would improve by leaving the files on the shelves to gather dust.
Asked about the ongoing revision on the European strategy on the internal market, the Commissioner indicated that president Barroso would be presenting a several page document to the European spring summit. He said that a final document would then be elaborated by October in partnership with Commission services from transport and energy to be presented at the European summit in 2008.
On Thursday the German presidency described these results as “historic” and called for more ambitious objectives. Michael Glos, federal minister for the economy and technology said that as part of the German presidency, “We have proposed to lower deficit rates for implementation that currently stand at 1.5% of a 1% ceiling. (mb)