IP/08/235

Brussels, 14 February 2008

Internal Market Scoreboard: Member States back on track

According to the European Commission’s latest Internal Market Scoreboard, on average 1.2% of Internal Market Directives for which the implementation deadline has passed are not currently written into national law, down from 1.6% in June 2007 and equalling the best-ever result of December 2006. This means that the average deficit is again below the 1.5% interim target agreed by Heads of State in 2001. Member States are also on the right track towards achieving the new 1% target by 2009 as agreed by Heads of State in March 2007, with 15 Member States having already reached this new target. However, Member States too often fail to apply Internal Market rules correctly: only ten Member States have managed to reduce the number of infringement proceedings against them. The full text of the latest Internal Market Scoreboard is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/score/index_en.htm

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said: "This is an excellent result, and I am delighted to see that Member States have redoubled their efforts since the last Scoreboard. For the Single Market to work effectively, its rules need to be applied correctly and on time. Now we need to see this progress continue towards achieving the new 1.0% target. The Commission will support Member States in this wherever it can."

Implementation of Internal Market Directives

• At 1.2%, the average transposition deficit – the percentage of Internal Market Directives that have not been implemented into national law in time – of the 27 Member States is well below the 1.5% interim target and matches the December 2006 result achieved by 25 Member States. The new target of 1% is to be reached by 2009 at the latest.
• The current Scoreboard is the first to measure the performance of a Europe with 27 Member States. Bulgaria and Romania deserve special mention, as they were able to transpose quickly most of the Internal Market acquis. Both Member States have already reached the 2009 target, with an average transposition deficit of 0.8%.
• 22 Member States are below the target of a 1.5% transposition deficit. This is an even better result than that achieved in December 2006, when 19 Member States reached the 1.5% target.
• Slovakia is in first position and is only 9 directives away from a 0% deficit. Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania closely follow, with 10 directives overdue.
• 4 Member States that missed the 1.5% target 6 months ago have now reached it: the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain and Italy. Notably, Italy is below the interim target of 1.5% for the first time, with a transposition deficit of 1.3%.

12 Member States have achieved or equalled their best result ever: Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia.

• 15 Member States are already in line with the future deficit target of 1.0%.
• The Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland and Greece failed to reach the 1.5% target. The Czech Republic's deficit is about three times the average EU deficit.
• The performance of Portugal and to a lesser extent that of Greece and Poland is, in absolute terms, not yet satisfactory. But Portugal and Greece have made very good progress in the last half year.

Infringements

• 10 Member States managed a reduction of their infringement proceedings over the last half year. 11 Member States have recorded an increase of their cases. 4 Member States still have the same number.
• Even if many Member States have seen an increase in their infringement proceedings caseload, this increase is quite limited between 1 (Austria and Lithuania) and 7 cases (Germany and Malta).
• Italy managed to reduce the number of its infringement cases by 19 over the last six months but still remains the country with the most cases. The second-best performer is Cyprus which has reduced its caseload by 9 cases.
• A breakdown of infringement proceedings by sector shows that the environmental rules are still the source of the largest number of cases (22%), followed by taxation and customs union rules (17%), energy and transport (12%), and employment (10%).

Benefits of the Internal Market and the importance of implementation

The Internal Market plays a key role in achieving the EU's objective of creating more growth and jobs. It has created millions of jobs and billions of euros in prosperity. It gives EU citizens a wider choice of quality goods and services and greater freedom to travel, work, study and live in other EU countries, while making for a more efficient allocation of resources and offering greater trading opportunities to businesses. But the Internal Market can only achieve its full potential if legislation agreed at European level is effectively implemented and applied by all Member States.

Annex

Internal Market Scoreboard 16 bis:

Transposition and application of Internal Market rules (details)

Transposition

EU-27 Member State transposition deficit, as at 10/11/2007 – 1630 directives

EU-25 Member State performance in meeting 0% target for Directives whose transposition is over 2 years late, as at 10/11/2007

Infringement cases

EU-27 Member State number of open infringement proceedings, as at 1/11/2007