WRITTEN QUESTION P-1988/00 by Carlos Coelho (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Internal market: delays in transposing European directives.
Date: 2000-06-09
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Portugal, national implementing measure

C 72 E/162

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

6.3.2001

4.

There are no confirmed BSE cases in Spain.

5.
The Commission is aware that the Spanish Minister has qualified the report as irresponsible. The
Commission underlines that the draft report is from the scientific steering committee that advises the
inter alia, on all matters relating to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs),
Commission,
including BSE. This body is independent and acts as transparently as possible, as requested by, among
others, the Parliament. In order to give all interested parties an opportunity to compare the assessments of
different Member States the SSC has decided to publish the draft reports together with a preliminary
opinion on the Internet. It has indicated its intention to take due account of all comments received before
20 June 2000, as long as they relate to risk assessment and not to risk management. The Commission is
aware that the scientific steering committee has seriously discussed the issue of this publication. It came to
the conclusion that
its responsibilities with regard to the
transparency of its work.

it should go ahead in order to respect

(2001/C 72 E/206)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1988/00

by Carlos Coelho (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(9 June 2000)

Subject: Internal market: delays in transposing European directives

Statements have been published to the effect that the Member States have been cutting back on their
efforts to transpose European internal market legislation into national law within the corresponding time-
limits.

The gap between Member States applying single market legislation (particularly Sweden, Finland and Spain)
and those delaying transposition (four countries (cid:129) Greece, Portugal, France and Luxembourg (cid:129) account
for over 40 % of delays) has widened dramatically.

Given that Portugal is among the countries with the worst deficit:

(cid:129) can the Commission clarify whether the above statements are accurate with regard to Portugal?

(cid:129) can it provide a list of all directives (regardless of the area concerned) awaiting transposition in

Portugal, indicating the subject and the length of the delay in each case?

(cid:129) can it provide a breakdown of these directives in order of urgency, based on the importance which it

attaches to each case?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(12 July 2000)

The single market scoreboard report (1), shows an increasing gap between Member States implementing
internal market legislation in a timely way and those accumulating delays. On 15 April 2000, the cut off
date for transposition data used in the scoreboard, Greece, France, Luxembourg and Portugal accounted for
44 % of all cases of delayed transposition (344 overdue implementing measures out of a total of 786).

The list of directives overdue in Portugal is sent directly to the Honourable Member and to Parliament(cid:146)s
Secretariat. It is not possible to provide a breakdown in order of urgency. Member States are under a legal
obligation to implement all directives on time. Failure to do so results in the opening of infringement
proceedings by the Commission in accordance with Article 226 (ex Article 169) of the EC Treaty.

(1) SEC(2000) 879.