Compliance

Database on EU Member State Compliance with Community Law

PROJECT ENDED
[this page is no longer updated]

Does the EU have a compliance problem? The truth is: we don't really know. Our knowledge concerning Member State compliance with Community law resembles a 'black hole' (Joseph Weiler). We simply lack reliable data. There are, of course, the Annual Reports of the Commission on the Monitoring of the Application of Community Law. They provide data on Member State infringements of Community law for the last 20 years. They are reported by Member State and policy sector for each year. Yet, despite their richness, the data are neither complete nor without some major deficiencies.

Tanja Boerzel, with the assistance of Charalampos Koutalakis, are putting together a more reliable database which draws on the Annual Reports of the Commission, the only available source of information.

Yet, instead of using aggregate data, each individual infringement case is coded according to its infringement number, the policy sector it falls into, the infringing Member State, the type of infringement, the year when the infringement proceedings were opened, and the current stage in the proceedings. Data on Member State infringements in the different policy sectors wiil cover the period of 1979 till 1998.

The database is part of a research project conducted at the European University Institute on Member State Compliance with Community Law. It will be made available on this site as soon as the project is concluded. In the meantime, we provide aggregate data on the different stages of Article 226 (ex-Art. 169) infringement proceedings as they are published in the Annual Reports of the European Commission. For your convenience, you can also download some of the aggregate data as excel files.