By Chris Jones - 18th April 2006
Brussels has begun infringement proceedings against a raft of national governments for failing to implement EU rules designed to open up the internal market.
France, which has already been criticised for its increasingly protectionist stance, is the biggest offender and faces six different cases.
Spain, another country where market liberalisation has proved a bitter pill to swallow, faces five cases.
The sector where there is the biggest disparity in the implementation of EU rules is financial services, with almost every EU country failing to fully comply with some part of the regulation.
Germany, Greece, France, Malta, Spain and Portugal have failed to adopt measures allowing insurance brokers from any member state to do business in any other, while Latvia and the Netherlands have been too slow to introduce rules on corporate governance of banking and insurance companies.
Spain has been too slow introducing new EU measures designed to stop insider dealing and market manipulation, while Luxembourg has not updated its accounting rules.
Meanwhile, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the UK have all been criticised for delaying moves that would harmonise the supervision of pension providers, which should have been completed in September.
Belgium and Italy have also taken too long to introduce EU rules that will make it easier for companies to raise capital anywhere within the EU.
Employment law is another area where national governments have been dragging their heels.
For example, Sweden, Spain, France and Greece have all failed to fully implement new rules on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications between member states.
“Some member states are effectively denying citizens and businesses across Europe the full benefit of the single market and of measures their governments have themselves agreed,” said internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy in a statement.
“The commission will do all it can to help member states implement laws on time, but will continue to take remedial action where necessary.”
This “remedial action” varies depending on the seriousness of the fault.
Most of the cases are at the ‘reasoned opinion’ stage, where the commission gives national governments two months to come up with satisfactory remedies.
But some cases – including several in the financial services sector – are more serious, and have been passed to the European courts, leaving the countries concerned facing the prospect of significant fines.
This is the second set of so-called infringement cases against EU member states for blocking the development of the internal market.
Seventeen EU countries were criticised by energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs earlier in April for failing to open up gas and electricity markets to competition.
And France and Spain were once again singled out for introducing new laws designed to protect so-called “sensitive” sectors, such as energy, from foreign takeovers.
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