This month, the editors of the blog issue a ‘news type’ of blog post. We would like to bring the readers’ attention to publications related to the central theme of enforcement that the EU Commission has made in the last month.
With this post, we aim to acknowledge the fact that the policy-makers’ attention given to the topic of enforcement of EU laws is remarkable and seems to be growing, a development that we support, also with this blog. In fact, in the first document listed below (‘Enforcing EU laws: delivering the benefits to citizens’), the EU Commission affirms that the enforcement of EU law is crucial to delivering benefits to citizens and discusses in detail a whole range of aspects that impact on the enforcement trend. In particular, the number of EU regulations has increased in recent years (2004 to 2021), while the number of EU directives has decreased significantly. In this context, the Commission states that it will monitor the implementation of EU regulations more closely. In an even shorter timeframe (2017 to 2021), the Commission has made progress in identifying issues and resolving them in a pre-infringement phase. Finally, most infringement procedures (2017 to 2021) concern the delay in transposition into national law by Member States and are resolved at an early stage of the process. What is even more a signal of the centrality of the enforcement of EU law is that in the very same document the EU Commission made clear that a follow-up on the enforcement of EU law is planned for 2023.
The publications include:
- Communication from the Commission: ‘Enforcing EU laws: delivering the benefits to citizens’
- Commission Staff Working Document ‘SOLVIT’s Helping Hand in the Single Market: celebrating 20 years‘
- Commission’s guidance ‘Antitrust: Commission provides guidance on its leniency policy and practice’
- Press release on the progress of ‘Consumer protection: Shopify commits to new practices to make it safer for consumers buying from web stores on the platform’
- Monthly infringement package: key decisions
Kelly Blount is a PhD Candidate at the University of Luxembourg. She also acts as a co-editor of this blog as well as a coordinator for the Young Researchers Platform of EULEN.
Laura Zoboli is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Turin. At the same time, she is Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw (on leave), Scientific Coordinator of the Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies and Co-director of the ASCOLA Central Europe Chapter.
