Transparency

The multi-layered law-making in the EU often leaves citizens and businesses puzzled as to which actually is the accountable body for a particular piece of legislation. There may also be a perception problem of what law comes from the EU and what is imposed nationally/locally.

Moreover EU directives may be implemented quite differently from Member State to Member State, particularly if they contain options/exceptions and/or if Member States engage in “gold plating” (1).  In addition, levels of enforcement and market surveillance may differ markedly so that in some Member States rules are enforced strictly whereas in others they are only occasionally enforced, or not at all.

In order to make this process more transparent the Commission decided in June 2003 based on paragraph 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement "Better Legislation" that all of its proposals for directive should contain a specific provision making compulsory the establishment by Member States of tables illustrating the correlation between the act in question and the transposition measures, as well as the communication of these tables to the Commission. The standard formulation found in the final provisions is: "They [the Member States] shall forthwith communicate to the Commission the text of those provisions and a correlation table between those provisions and this Directive."

From the beginning of 2004, Council became increasingly opposed to this standard provision and advocated for a non-binding option. The solution supported unanimously in Council was to insert a recital which refers to the interinstitutional agreement on the subject, and to delete the obligation imposed on Member States in the text of the directive.

The Commission, whilst not seeking to block the legislation concerned as a result, has always maintained its objection to the principle of this solution, underlining at the level of COREPER and the Council the importance of including such a provision in the text of directives with a view to the horizontal objective of better legislation.

Better legislation and transparency in EU law-making are key issues for the ALDE Group. Therefore the Group aims at winning support for correlation tables to be included as a standard amendment in directives amended by the EP. Furthermore it should convince national parliaments of their usefulness for monitoring the correct implementation of EU legislation in national law which will help them in scrutinizing and holding accountable their national governments as well as the EU institutions.


(1) - Goldplating happens when Member States exceed the provisions foreseen in EU directives when implementing them in national law by tagging additional, unnecessary measures