Brussels: 1 March 2010

The European Commission Single Market information platform has published Edition 20 of the single market scoreboard. Date: December 2009. ISSN 1830-5881. Pages: 32.

The internal market scoreboard version 20 states: (Reference page 5)

“While these achievements are highly welcome there is scope for further improvements. A further challenge is therefore added in this Internal Market Scoreboard edition calling on all Member States to put an increased focus on the need to reduce transposition delays. Today, on average Member States take an extra 9 months to transpose directives after the transposition deadline expires. Greece and Luxembourg are the worst offenders in this respect.

It is to be noted, finally, that the fragmentation factor on Internal Market legislation decreased to 5% which translates into 74 Internal Market directives not producing their full effect in the whole EU. In other words, the Internal Market is still operating at only 95% of its potential. Hence, more efforts are needed to further reduce the fragmentation factor.”

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The press release IP/10/211 published on the 1st March 2010 titled: Internal Market Scoreboard: Member States post best-ever result but action still needed on practical application of rules states:

“Member States have never performed better in writing agreed Internal Market rules into national law on time, but still need to improve the way those rules are applied in practice, according to the European Commission’s latest Internal Market Scoreboard. On average 0.7% of Internal Market Directives for which the implementation deadline has passed are not currently written into national law, down from 1.0% in July 2009. This means that Member States are well below the 1.0% target agreed by Heads of State, which was to be achieved by 2009 at the latest. Twenty Member States are either at or below the target, while Lithuania and Malta were overall the best performers, being three Directives away from a perfect score. This is the third time that Malta has been in first position. Sixteen Member States achieved their best result so far. However, seven Member States – Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Luxembourg and Greece – are still above the target and hindering further reduction of the deficit. As regards application of EU law, there has been a slight reduction in the number of infringement cases, but the duration of the proceedings remains too long and Member States take on average 18 months to comply with Court of Justice rulings despite the legal obligation to take immediate action.

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said: "This is an excellent result that will benefit the whole of the Internal Market. I encourage the seven Member States that have not yet reached the target to redouble their efforts. But the quality of implementation and practical application of the rules on the ground remains a big problem, affecting efficiency and undermining confidence in the Internal Market. Non-compliance with Court rulings is simply unacceptable. I fully intend to use the possibility under the new Treaty to enforce these rulings more rapidly. I want to establish a true partnership with Member States to better understand and prevent these problems. Together I am sure that we can put citizens and businesses back at the heart of the Internal Market.”

Implementation of Internal Market Directives

• At 0.7%, the average transposition deficit – the percentage of Internal Market Directives that have not been implemented into national law in time – of the 27 Member States is well below the interim target of 1% agreed by the Heads of State and Government in 2007. This is the first time that Member States have outperformed their target within the deadline agreed upon.
• In total, 16 Member States achieved or equalled their best result ever: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, France, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Finland and the United Kingdom.
• The number of Member States achieving the target went up from 18 to 20. The Member States still not in line with the 1% target are the following: Austria, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Luxembourg and Greece. This being said, with the exception of Austria, all 7 Member States managed to considerably reduce their deficits.
• Given the volume of legislation that will come on stream in the next 6 months, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland will all need to take drastic action to reach the target next time round.
• Member States have managed to decrease the number of long-overdue directives from 22 to 16 within the last six months.
• Member States have also managed to reduce the number of directives not correctly transposed. Adding the number of directives not correctly transposed to the number of directives not transposed in time results in an EU average deficit of 1.5% compared to 1.8% half a year ago.
• Member States should now put an increased focus on the need to reduce transposition delays. Today, on average Member States take an extra 9 months to transpose directives after the transposition deadline expires. Greece and Luxembourg are the worst offenders in this respect.

Infringements

• The overall number of infringement proceedings has decreased slightly by 1.2% compared to half a year ago. As in previous years, the areas of "taxation and custom union" and "environment" remain the biggest sources of infringements.
• Italy accounts for most of the open infringement proceedings, followed by Greece and Spain.
• The average time needed to resolve infringements has risen. Compared to December 2007 the time needed has increased from 25 months to 28 for the EU-15 and from 12 months to 16 for the EU-12.
• Member States take considerable time – on average almost 18 months – to comply with rulings of the Court of Justice, even though they are required to take immediate action. Austria and Spain account for the longest delay, taking on average approximately 25 months to comply with rulings.”

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The European Commission published report titled: Internal Market Directives adopted as at 01.10.2009 sorted by transposition deadline (Dated: 1 October 2009. Pages =63) includes the PSI re-use and INSPIRE Directives.

• Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information

• Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)

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