Malta has emerged as the best performer in transposing EU legislation into its national law books, according to the latest Internal Market Scoreboard.
However, the island still suffers from incorrectly implementing the directives and in November, another report ranked it third in the list of infringements among new member states.
The latest Commission report, which includes data until mid-November, shows Malta has just five directives left to transpose from 1,611, putting the island at a transposition deficit of just 0.3 per cent. The only other country which managed to do as well as Malta was Denmark which also achieved a transposition deficit of 0.3 per cent.
In the previous scoreboard published last May, Malta had a transposition deficit of 0.9 per cent.
"Malta is doing very well and the Commission is impressed with the rapidity and efficiency the Maltese government is showing in transposing EU directives," a Commission official said when contacted.
"We are even suggesting to other member states with a bad record to speak to Malta on how it is managing to do this," he added.
The Times is informed that a French delegation recently held talks with Maltese authorities over the system and methodology they are using to transpose EU laws.
According to an agreement reached by EU leaders, by the end of this year member states cannot have a transposition deficit of more than one per cent.
Normally a member state is given two years from the publication of a new directive or regulation in the EU's official journal to transpose it into its national law.
According to Brussels, Malta is also managing to tackle its pending infringement cases although these are still on the high side when compared to the other 12 new EU member states.
Until mid-November, Malta still had 40 pending infringement cases open, mostly related to environmental law. However, the Commission noted progress even in this regard as Malta managed to close five cases since the previous scoreboard.
Overall, the latest scoreboard shows Luxembourg and Poland as the worst performers in the EU when it comes to transposing laws, with Italy and Spain being the two countries that mostly breach EU laws.
According to Brussels, Italy is topping the infringement list with 112 cases opened, followed closely by Spain with 103 pending legal actions. The third place is occupied by Greece with a pending infringement caseload of 91.