Press Release: Internal Market Scoreboard reveals some progress on implementation but many infringements

For the first time the average percentage of Internal Market Directives not yet implemented in national law (i.e. the implementation deficit) has shrunk to 2.0% in the EU, according to the latest Internal Market Scoreboard published on 19 November 2001. Five Member States (Finland, Denmark, Sweden the Netherlands and Spain) already meet the European Council's target of an implementation deficit of less than 1.5%. Finland has the best performance of all Member States, whereas France and Greece are together in last position. This positive trend is marred by a large number of Internal Market infringement proceedings, about 1500. France, Italy and Germany are together responsible for nearly 40% of all these infringement cases, while Ireland, Belgium and Greece account for a disproportionate number of infringements in relation to their size. As for implementation of the Internal Market Strategy, 37% of target actions due by the end of 2001 to improve the functioning of the Internal Market are not expected to be achieved on time, according to the Scoreboard