Czech Republic successfully eliminates transposition deficit in the internal market area

Removal of barriers on the internal market is a clear priority of the Czech Republic so that the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital would become reality. In addition to consistent and long-term defence of this requirement at the European level, it is also necessary to put the Union commitments thoroughly into practice at the national level. A recent positive development in this respect is documented by the fact that Czech Republic has achieved a significant improvement in the area of transpositions in the last months.

The transposition of directives results of the Member States in the area of internal market are biannually evaluated and compared by the European Commission in a publication called “The Internal Market Scoreboard”. The target limit of transposition deficit, whose fulfilment is monitored within these evaluations, is set at 1 %. However, more than half of Member States are not able to reach this requirement, although the European Commission announced it´s aim to lower the level to 0.5 % in the last issue of the Internal Market Scoreboard.

According to statistics of the Compatibility Department of the Czech Office of the Government – which coordinates and controls the process of EU law implementation and is also the national guarantor for the Internal Market Scoreboard – the Czech transposition deficit decreased to the lowest level in the history of our EU membership. In March 2012, it was around 0.6 % – this figure corresponds to 8 non-transposed directives concerning the internal market whose transposition deadline has already expired. For comparison: the transposition deficit in spring 2011 was 2.03 % and listed 31 non-transposed directives, according to the official publication of the Internal Market Scoreboard No. 23.

Further decline in the number of non-transposed directives is expected in the foreseeable future, since the transposition legislation to the above-mentioned eight directives has been partly already enacted and sent to be published in the Collection of Laws; the rest is currently in the final stage of legislative process. This means that Czech Republic now fulfils the European Commission’s requirement to achieve a transposition deficit not exceeding 1 % by the end of March 2012 and will also meet the newly proposed lower transposition deficit level of 0.5 %.