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Madrid – Spain has started the year with more than 80 pending European directives to transpose and already accumulates a total of 90 open files, positioning itself as the European Union (EU) country with the most non-compliance in the application of community legislation.
This is stated in the latest report prepared by the Office of the European Parliament in Spain with the aim of analyzing how European legislation is transferred to our country and which was presented to the media this Tuesday at the Congress of Deputies.
Specifically, in December 2024, Spain had a total of 87 pending European directives for transposition, of which 29 have already reached the deadline for application and one of them is about to do so. For most of the remaining 57, there is a deadline until 2026.
The bulk of the rules that have not yet been incorporated into national legislation are related to ecological transition (16), the economy (15), labor and immigration (a dozen), and health (seven pending rules).
The non-application of these transpositions usually results in the opening of a file by the European Commission, where Spain is at the forefront with a total of 90 open infringements, followed by Poland with 88, Greece with 81, and Bulgaria with 79.
This opening of a file can occur either for not applying the transposition or also for not complying correctly with what is set by Europe and usually results in financial penalties.
If we analyze all the laws that were passed during the year 2024 in the Cortes Generales, a total of 24, 46% had a European origin since they derive from directives or regulations set by the EU.
Some of these laws were, for example, the reform of the Law on the exchange of criminal record information and consideration of criminal judicial resolutions in the European Union, to allow prisoners, including those of ETA, to commute the sentences they have served abroad, or also the tax on multinationals of the fiscal reform promoted by the Executive of Pedro Sánchez.
This percentage of European influence in legislation has remained quite stable over the last six years, with an average of 53%. However, in 2023, the year of the last elections with the corresponding legislative break, 72% of the laws passed had originated from the community sphere.
Although European influence is not only noticeable in the Cortes Generales, the Government, through royal decrees, also has the possibility of complying with EU requirements to adapt national legislation.
In fact, in 2024, the Council of Ministers approved a total of 20 royal decrees with the aim of transposing European directives, the vast majority of which related to agricultural policy or fishing but also with transport or working conditions.
In addition to all these rules, the 84 regulations that were approved by Europe over the last year were added, whose application is direct in all member states.
In fact, unlike European directives, the regulations approved by the EU do not need legislative processing in the country for their application, unless there is a clash with one of the existing laws at the national level, in which case the country must make a modification of said rule.
However, for the application of directives, a national law that transposes it is necessary, and countries normally have a two-year period to choose how to adapt their legislation to European requirements. (January 14)