Malta first in transposition of EU internal market laws

The Internal Market Scoreboard report examines how effective Member States are in the transposing of Internal Market Directives into national law. It also reports on infringement proceedings related to internal market questions.

Internal Market Directives are those Directives which are considered to have an impact on the functioning of the internal market; in practice this concerns all areas except for environmental protection.

In its report, the European Commission highlights that Malta once again has the smallest “transposition deficit” and that “since November 2008, Malta is in first position and even continues to reduce its deficit.”

The European Commission further commends Malta in reducing its timely transposition deficit and has no longer any incorrectly transposed directive. In the meantime, Malta has fully transposed the provisions of the only two Directives which the Commission refers to in its report as still being outstanding.

With regard to infringement proceedings, most progress in reducing the number of open infringement cases was made by Malta (reduction of 65%), followed by Finland (reduction of 57%). Malta is also identified as the Member State with the highest early resolution rate of infringement proceedings.

The latest Internal Market Scoreboard includes an Internal Market Enforcement Table which provides an overview of Member States' overall implementation and application of Internal Market rules and provides a general overview of Member States’ efforts to comply with Internal Market legislation. Even in this area Malta is reported as the overall best performer.

 mbassador Richard Cachia Caruana, Permanent Representative of Malta to the EU, welcomed the fact that the Scoreboard has again confirmed Malta's excellent performance in terms of the transposition of EU laws, resolution of infringements and enforcement of EU legislation.

He noted that this is the fifth consecutive time that Malta has placed first amongst EU Member States in the Scoreboard and stated that such positive results are evidence of the sound internal structures and commitment of Maltese institutions to follow the EU’s internal market rules. The internal market has a direct impact on growth and jobs.