The Internal Market Scoreboard, published bi-annually since 1997, monitors how well the EEA EFTA States, namely Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, comply with their obligations to ensure timely transposition of Internal Market directives and regulations into national law. In addition, the Scoreboard provides information on the number of infringement proceedings initiated against the EEA EFTA States for failure to apply EEA legislation correctly as well as for failure to transpose directives and regulations on time.
Average result in EEA EFTA States the same as in EU Member States
The 25th Scoreboard, published today in parallel with the Internal Market Scoreboard of the European Commission, shows that the average transposition deficit of the EEA EFTA States remained at 0.7 percent. This is the same result as at the time of the previous Scoreboard published in July 2009. The average transposition deficit of the EU Member States was reduced by 0.3 percent, from 1 percent to 0.7 percent.
Good results for Liechtenstein and Norway
By reducing its transposition deficit from 0.5 percent to 0.4 percent, Liechtenstein achieved its best result ever. The transposition deficits of Norway and Iceland increased slightly: from 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent for Norway and, regrettably, from 1.1 percent to 1.3 percent for Iceland. Iceland's deficit, at 1.3 percent, remained above the 1 percent interim target.
Norway and Iceland were able to reduce their transposition delays: Norway's average transposition delay was 4.6 months and Iceland's 13.4 months. Iceland had three directives overdue by more than two years. Liechtenstein's transposition delay increased from 6.1 months to 9.5 months.
“This Scoreboard confirms that the EEA EFTA States continue performing well”. “Liechtenstein and Norway are well below the 1% target, whilst Iceland still needs to improve to reach the target”, says Per Sanderud, President of the EFTA Surveillance Authority.
Total number of infringement proceedings remains low but number of infringements based on late transposition of regulations remains high.
Although the total number of infringement cases pursued by the Authority decreased by six cases from the time of the previous Scoreboard, the number of infringement cases due to lack of conformity with or incorrect application of Internal Market rules remained the same as at the time of the previous Scoreboard. In comparison to the EU Member States, the number of such infringement proceedings against the EEA EFTA States continued to be low.
The number of infringement cases concerning late transposition of directives by the EEA EFTA States decreased from 30 to 24 since the previous Scoreboard, whereas the number of new infringement cases against Iceland due to late transposition of regulations doubled. Also, the number of overdue regulations, regrettably, increased by six regulations in Iceland and eight regulations in Norway since the time of the previous Scoreboard.
Read the Scoreboard here.