IP/08/1728

Brussels, 18 November 2008

Applying Community law better

The European Commission has presented today its Annual Report on monitoring the Application of Community Law. It shows how the Commission is translating its Better Regulation aims into actions – better assessing national impacts when it prepares legislation; working with the Member States to solve problems that citizens raise, resolving them more quickly and efficiently than could be done through legal proceedings; improving efficiency in managing infringements and enhancing dialogue with the Council, the European Parliament and the public on the application of law.

President Barroso stated: "Europe is a community of law – laws need to be properly applied in the Member States. We are working to ensure that laws are well prepared, that problems in applying the law are solved on the ground and that, where there are infringements of legislation, they are pursued vigilantly and managed efficiently."

With more than 10.000 legal acts in force in 27 Member States challenges are inevitably many and varied, the infringement process plays an essential role in guaranteeing the correct application of Community Law. At the end of 2007, the Commission was handling 3400 infringement files, which represent an increase of 5.9% compared with 2006. The Commission points to the fact that it has accelerated the progress of infringements management to achieve an average of 23 months to complete a file compared with the 28 month average reported for previous years. It confirms the high percentage of issues resolved without need for recourse to the European Court of Justice (93% of complaints closed before a ruling of the ECJ). The sectors which have the most significant case load continue to be environment, internal market, taxation energy, transport and employment among others.

Priority areas of action

The report identifies three main areas of action:

Prevention: designing laws which are simple and clear, easy to implement and enforce. The Commission is revising its Impact Assessment guidelines, carefully assessing the choice of legal instrument. More is being done to prepare for the implementation of laws once adopted – looking at the parts of the proposals which could pose particular implementation challenges; further developing informal networks with the Member States well before the laws come into force.

General management of the law, Information-provision and problem-solving for citizens and business. Extensive use is being made of committees and expert groups (roughly 1500 of them) meeting regularly to update technical requirements, issue interpretative guidelines, adopt codes of conduct, etc. all contributing to improved application of the law. Good management of the law also means following-up on the individual interests of citizens and businesses and this too is being prioritised in different ways.

Information services like Europe Direct, Citizens' Signpost Service, EEC-Net, Euro-jus inform and advise citizens and business on their rights. In SOLVIT Member States co-operate to resolve cross-frontier issues arising in the internal market. A pilot project has been launched with 15 Member States to answer questions and resolve citizens' problems with the application of law in many policy areas (Environment, Internal Market, Enterprise, Employment, Taxation, etc.).

Complaints and infringements management: To be most effective in tackling problems arising in the application of Community Law, the Commission is improving its working methods to produce the best and quickest results. When recourse to infringement proceedings is required, the Commission has to ensure that those causing the greatest negative impact for the objectives of the legislation, or the widest negative impact on citizens and business, are given priority. In this report, the Commission takes a further step in the development of its priorities in this work.

Background

Following a request made by the European Parliament the Commission presents, every year, since 1984, an annual report on monitoring the application of Community law during the preceding year.

Until last year the annual report mainly focused on the activities done in the previous year.

In 2007 in its Communication on 'A Europe of Result – Applying Community Law' COM (2007) 502, the Commission announced it would give the annual report a new, forward looking focus on strategic issues, evaluation of the current state of the law and priorities and programming of future work.

The European Parliament adopts, every year, a report on our annual report, explaining its position on the main issues.

The 25^th Annual Report on Monitoring the Application of Community Law (2007) and the accompanying documents are available on Europa website.

European EC Rapid Press Release IP/08/1728, copyright European Commission.
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