According to the European Commission’s latest Internal Market Scoreboard, which was established to encourage member states to ensure the effective implementation of single market rules, member states continue to perform well in transposing internal market rules into national law. They remain in line with the 1 percent target of the internal market directives – a figure set in 2007 by EU heads of State and Government.
Figures released by the Commission show that the average EU transposition deficit, which means the percentage of internal market directives that have not been implemented into national law, stands at 0.9 percent. The total number of member states achieving the 1 percent transposition deficit target increased from 18 to 20 member states. There has also been a 40 percent reduction (on average 5.8 months) in the average extra time member states need to transpose an EU Directive into national law.
Infringements committed regarding the application of EU law decreased by 11 percent in the last 6 months in the EU. This deduction is partially due to the Commission, which introduced a number of alternative problem solving and complaints handling mechanisms. Taxation and environment are the two areas that continue to be a cause of infringements. Of 1030 infringement cases, 44 percent were related to either taxation or the environment. The EU average for number of open infringement proceedings is 40 cases per member state compared to 46 cases half a year ago. On average, it takes member states more than 18 months to comply with rulings of the EU Court of Justice, even though they are required to take immediate action.
Ireland
Ireland is one of six (including Malta, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg and Latvia) out of 20 member states meeting the 1 percent target and which improved or equalled their transposition deficit in the last 6 months. This proves that despite challenging economic circumstances, it is still possible to maintain or further improve the transposition performance. Greece, Portugal and Luxembourg have made the most improvements with Malta positioning itself on top of the poll as the best transposition performer with only two directives awaiting transposition. In relation to the rulings from the European Court of Justice, Ireland takes the longest to comply with the time calculated as approximately 25 months. Ireland, Germany, the UK and Italy demonstrated the biggest decrease in infringement proceedings with 40 cases.