For a country often bashed by its own citizens for lack of law enforcement, Malta shines when it comes to falling in line with European Union regulations.

“Malta is by far the best member state when it comes to compliance with EU law,” European Commission spokesman Oliver Bailly said yesterday after the release of a report showing the number of infringements pending for each member state.

The island has the least number of pending infringements in the list, with just 25 cases by the end of 2010, its lowest since accession. Latvia and Lithuania followed closely with 27 and 29.

On the other hand, our Mediterranean neighbours, Italy and Greece – hardly paragons of law enforcement themselves – were among the worst offenders with 176 and 157 pending cases. Belgium is also among the major trouble makers, placing second in the infringement ranking with 159 pending cases.

The report also shows that despite having 25 new infringement cases opened in 2010, the island managed to solve many of the issues rapidly, leaving only eight cases pending by the end of the year and carried over to 2011.

EU member states are becoming more complaint with EU law, with the number of infringements coming down year after year. Overall, at the end of 2010, the Commission counted nearly 2,100 infringement cases, 28 per cent less than a year earlier. In all this, civil society and businesses kept their role as main prodders ensuring the correct application of EU rules, as almost half of the cases stemmed from complaints submitted by the public.

In many cases, the complaint led to further investigations and the Commission invited the national authorities to look into the problems raised.

At the end of 2010, 81 per cent of the replies from member states had been accepted by the Commission. It engaged in formal action whenever the solution offered by the national authorities was not compatible with EU law. However, only 114 cases had to be referred to the European Court of Justice, whereas 873 disputes were closed before that stage was reached.

Environment, internal market, services and taxation remained the three most infringement-prone areas, together representing 52 per cent of all the cases.