Brussels, 05/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 5 September, the European Commission put forward a communication to improve the application of Community law by member states. The Commission, as part of its better regulation priority, aims at having Community law implemented more effectively and at resolving complaints made by citizens and business more quickly. To maintain Europe's competitiveness in a fast changing world, the Commission says that “it is important that policy-making is responsive to citizens' and business interests”. As guardian of the treaties, it sets out a programme of possible improvements. It seeks to identify, through different instruments, the implementation issues in preparing new or amending legislation. It aims at a renewed commitment from member states to improve information provision and problem-solving for citizens and business. It commits itself to: more targeted problem-prevention; increased efficiency through more frequent decision-taking and prioritisation in the management of legal proceedings brought by the Commission; increased transparency in the application and enforcement of the law. It suggests more strategic planning of the implementation, management and enforcement of Community legislation and increased review of results between Commission, Parliament and Council.
The communication adopted on Wednesday sets out four main areas of action: more targeted preventive measures; improved information provision and problem-solving; a more efficient management of infringements cases by prioritising to ensure the greatest benefit to the greatest number in the management of legal proceedings where problems persist; and increased transparency. The Parliament, Council and, most of all, member states are asked to increase the attention paid to this part of the Better Regulation agenda. One of the most important suggestions is for the Commission to test, with member states, possibilities of working more pro-actively to find quick answers and solutions to citizens' enquiries and complaints. The Commission proposes the following main improvements:
Prevention measures: 1) Increased attention to implementation and enforcement aspects in all stages of development of new legislation; 2) the Commission will systematically nominate contact points for each new legislative measure and request member states to do likewise; 3) it will continue to systematically include in proposals the obligation to present "correlation tables" and seeks the commitment from Council and member states to support the provision of these tables; 4) it will verify member state support of complementary training for judges and civil servants.
Information-provision and problem-solving: 1) The Commission will seek commitment from member states to work more actively to find constructive and quick solutions to problems with the aim of reducing the number of infringements; it is the piloting of a new working method for enquiries and complaints sent to the Commission to give member states the opportunity to provide information and solutions directly to the citizens within short deadlines.
More efficient management of infringement cases: 1)The Commission will attach priority to those cases which present the greatest risks and widespread impact for citizens and businesses; 2) general priorities will be defined (non communication and 228 cases) as well as fixed annually in certain sectors; 3) all complaints and infringements will be dealt with, but some more immediately than others in accordance to their importance and impact; 4) the Commission will ensure more continuous decision-taking on infringements to avoid congestion and allow cases to be taken forward as soon as they are ready.
Increased transparency: 1) With a view to strengthening interinstitutional dialogue, the Commission will focus its future annual reports on strategic issues, evaluation of the current state of the law in different sectors, priorities and programming of future work; 2) to respond better and more consistently to interest, summary information will be published on all stages of infringement proceedings while maintaining confidentiality on content and timing of contacts with member states; 3) the Commission proposes to publish more information on deadlines for and performance of member states in this domain; 4) it will work towards providing open access to its electronic database containing national transposition measures and correlation tables, pending the introduction of access to national databases.
Further information can be obtained at the website:
http: //ec.europa.eu/community_law/eulaw/index_en.htm (ol)