Press Release: Internal Market Scoreboard: Member States need to focus on correctly applying Internal Market rules

According to the European Commission’s latest Internal Market Scoreboard, on average 1.6% of Internal Market Directives for which the implementation deadline has passed are not currently written into national law, up from the best-ever result of 1.2% in January 2007 (see IP/07/126). This means that the average deficit remains above the new 1% interim target agreed by Heads of State in March 2007. Nevertheless the Commission sees reasons for optimism as to the next overall result in January 2008, with most Member States appearing to be on the right track and nine Member States having already reached the new 1% target. However, Member States too often fail to apply Internal Market rules correctly: only four Member States have managed to reduce the number of infringement proceedings against them.