EU targets legislation ‘slackers’

Portugal, the home nation of European commission president José Manuel Barroso, is the worst offender when it comes to transposing EU rules and regulations.

The latest report on the speed with which governments are copying the 1634 EU directives into their national laws was published by internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy on Thursday.

By November 2006, Portugal had failed to transpose three per cent of EU directives, making it the worst of the EU25, just ahead of Greece and Luxembourg.

At the other end of the scale, Denmark and Lithuania are the best performers, with just 0.3 per cent of EU rules – five directives – still left to transpose.

Britain and Poland, despite their eurosceptic images, are the best of the ‘big’ EU nations when it comes to towing the Brussels line, with just 0.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent left to transpose.

France, Spain and Italy – perennial slowcoaches – all have transposition rates below the EU25 average of 1.2 per cent.

This is the first time that the average figure across the EU has fallen below the 1.5 per cent target set by EU leaders in 2001.

McCreevy noted that this was partially because of the Barroso commission’s insistence on producing less legislation than in previous years.

But there has nonetheless been much improvement – France, for example, has improved from 1.9 per cent in June to 1.3 per cent in November, while Germany has moved from 1.8 per cent to one per cent.

Nonetheless, national governments are still taking far too long to transpose EU rules, McCreevy said.

Luxembourg, for example, has still to agree on transposing nine EU directives that should have been enshrined in national rules over two years ago, while the Czechs have six outstanding and the French four.

The internal market scoreboard also highlights countries that have continually failed to follow EU rules, whether they have been transposed or not.

Rome faces 161 separate infringement cases from the commission for ignoring EU rules, while Madrid is facing 109, Paris 95, Athens 91 and Berlin 80.

In many cases, these are rules relating to the liberalisation of markets, reflecting ongoing reticence of much of ‘old’ Europe to give up state-held stakes in sectors such as transport and energy.

Poland, which has 48 infringement cases pending, has the worst year-on-year performance, doubling the number of cases compared to 2005 - perhaps reflecting the increasing euroscepticism of the new Polish government.

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