Over the past two-and-a-half years Malta has managed to resolve nearly half of its EU-rule infringements identified by the European Commission.
According to the latest edition of the Internal Market scoreboard published in Brussels yesterday, between November 2007 and May 2010, Malta amicably resolved 47 per cent of infringements, cutting the number of legal challenges launched by Brussels against it down to 23 cases.
The only other member state to perform better in this respect was Finland, which reduced outstanding legal issues with Brussels by 51 per cent.
On average, the total number of closed legal disputes during the same period stood at 11 per cent across the EU.
“We are very impressed by Malta’s achievements during the past years,” a Commission official said. “Infringements started against EU member states are very common because this is part of the Commission’s remit as the guardian of the EU Treaties. However, Malta is making very genuine efforts to cut the number of disputes and the majority of cases, more than 60 per cent, are resolved by Malta within a few months from the time we send our first letter of formal notice.”
The EU’s legal procedures are three-pronged: a case against a member state suspected of infringing EU rules is initiated through a letter of formal notice, followed by a reasoned opinion if the Commission is not satisfied with the states’ response. If the problem persists, the Commission will then take the case before the European Court of Justice.
According to the Commission’s internal report, Malta is among the member states with the lowest number of pending infringement procedures.
The worst offenders of EU laws as of May 2010 were Belgium and Greece, with 111 and 84 infringement procedures respectively. On the other end, the record for the most compliant member state stands with Cyprus, with only 13 infringement procedures.
The average stood at 48 pending cases, more than double Malta’s outstanding cases.
The Commission’s report gives full marks to Malta on the transposition of EU directives into its national law books. By May 2010, Malta had the least number of pending transpositions, three directives, at par with Denmark.