Many EU Members Failing To Implement Internal Market Laws

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

15 July 2004

The latest Internal Market Scoreboard on the transposition of EU legislation into national law has revealed that the average 'transposition deficit' (the percentage of internal market directives which have not been implemented on a national level) currently stands at 2.2% for the EU 15 member states.

France has the worst track of the Union's 15 original members in this area, with 62 directives yet to be transposed into national law. The Benelux countries, Germany, Greece and Italy all have similarly poor records, with more than 30 directives still to implement each.

However, according to the EC, Denmark, Spain, UK, Ireland and Finland have again met the 1.5% interim target set by the European Council.

The Commission went on to add that first indications are of big disparities among the 10 new Member States in implementing directives, with some, such as Lithuania and Slovenia, notifying national implementing laws for the vast majority of directives. However, others such as Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have much to do.

Malta is the worst offender amongst the new member states, according to the Scoreboard figures, with 617 EU directives still to be written into national law.

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