Malta improves on transposition, implementation of EU internal market directives

On average 0.9% of internal market directives for which the implementation deadline had passed were not currently written into national law, up from 0.7% in March 2010.

“This means that Member States are still in line, but only just, with the 1.0% target set by Heads of State and Government in 2007,” EU Commissioner for Internal Market Michel Barnier insisted.

According to the Commission, there has been “a slight fall” in the number of infringements compared to the previous six months.

Recognising the importance of citizens' mobility in the internal market, a section of the scoreboard focused on the effective application of EU rules. In total, eighteen member states, including Malta, meet the 1% transposition target in the latest EU internal market scoreboard.

Eight member States, including Malta, improved or equalled their transposition deficit compared to six months ago.

The other seven member states that improved their transposition deficit when compared to March 2010 were Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, Slovenia, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

Denmark and Malta also shared the first position of best transposition performers with only 3 directives awaiting transposition at the end of September.

Another 9 member states were above the 1% transposition target at the end of September: Austria, Italy, France, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Greece.

With the exception of Austria and Italy, “all other member states have increased their already existing transposition backlogs,” the Commission lamented.

Compared to 6 months ago, the EU average transposition delay had improved by 2 months.

Today, it took on average an extra 7 months to transpose EU directives after the transposition deadline expired.

21 Member States had managed to reduce their average transposition delays. The biggest improvements were registered by Spain, Italy and Slovakia.

The overall number of infringement proceedings relating to the internal market decreased by 2.1% compared to 6 months ago. Taxation and custom union and environment remained the biggest areas of infringements.

Compared to previous years, the ranking of open infringement proceedings had changed. Today, Belgium accounted for most of the infringement proceedings, followed by Greece.

For the first time, the internal market scoreboard featured an enforcement table. It provided an overview of member states' compliance with the implementation and application of internal market law.

According to the Commission, the table showed that overall, Malta, together with Latvia and Slovenia, were “the best performing member states.

However, in the vast majority of member states, there was “at least one area where more attention is needed, such as the number of directives not correctly transposed”, it insisted.

Interestingly, this also applied to member states posting relatively good transposition deficits, highlighting that “good transposition and good implementation are both necessary for rules to be effective on the ground,” the Commission warned.