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Cini: European Union Politics 2e

Chapter 01

Implementation deficit of European legislation

The European Union faces a problem of uneven implementation of its rules by national authorities. Agreement on common rules at the Community level does not necessarily translate into commitment to apply those rules coherently and effectively . For better implementation, the Commission issued a series of communications which focus particularly on the openness, effectiveness and accountability of the implementation of European legislation (European Commission, 1 December 2002 ) . The Commission's communications include proposals for:
(1) improved quality of control as regards the application of legislation – the duty of the Commission 'as guardian of the Treaties' will become more relevant in the perspective of enlargement;
(2) reform of the implementation committee system, or so-called 'comitology ';
(3) new regulatory agencies; and
(4) ' tripartite conventions and contracts' between different levels of governance such as local, regional, national authorities for a more adapted and flexible implementation of EU legislation and programmes (See for a full text by the Commission europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/02/1865&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en) . However, the press release by the Commission on 12 January 2004 demonstrates that there are still big disparities between member states in implementing and applying rules of the internal market. According to the Commission, t he average implementation deficit per member state - the percentage of the total number of Internal Market Directives in force which have not been written into national law by the legal deadline - is 2.3%, only a marginal improvement on the May 2003 figure of 2.4%. Denmark, Spain, Finland , Ireland and the UK have a generally good record of implementing Directives on time , keeping their implementation deficit below the target of 1.5% set out by the Council . However, others, such as France, Germany, Luxembourg, Greece and Italy, have persistently had a deficit of more than double the target. Big disparities also exist in the number of infringement procedures against m ember states for misapplication of Internal Market rules. France and Italy together account for 28% of Internal Market infringement cases, more than Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland and the Netherlands combined. The report also shows that 12 out of the 15 'old' Member States have shown less consistency than previously in relation to their transposition of internal market Directives , although the 10 new member states have improved dramatically since their accession .

Web Links

Governance in the EU – A White Paper
europa.eu.int/comm/governance/index_en.htm

Policy-Network.net
www.progressive-governance.net/

Centre for European Research (CER) work programme on 'Reform of the EU's institutions and policies'
www.cer.org.uk/institutions_new/index_institutions_new.html

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) research on the EU politics and institutions
www.ceps.be/Article.php?article_id=25

European Policy Institutes Network
www.epin.org/index.php

Further Learning Resources

Grabbe , Heather (2002), 'The governance of the EU: Facing the challenge of enlargement', New Economy, Vol.9, Issue 2, pp. 113-7
www.cer.org.uk/articles/grabbe_0802.html

The homepage of Prof. Simon Hix
personal.lse.ac.uk/hix/DEFAULT.HTM

Richardson, Jeremy (ed.) (2001), European Union: Power and Policy-Making, London, Routledge.

Tsebelis, George (2002), Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.