The European Commission has decided to pursue infringement procedures against 22 Member States for failure to implement certain Internal Market Directives in national law. The Commission will formally request those 22 Member States – all except
The Commission will also formally request the
These formal requests take the form of “reasoned opinions”, the second stage of the infringement procedure laid down in Article 226 of the EC Treaty. If there is no satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice. Finally Commission has decided, under Article 228 of the EC Treaty, to send a reasoned opinion to Ireland requesting execution of a European Court of Justice judgement relating to implementation of the Directive on rental and lending rights.
Recognition of Bulgarian and Romanian qualifications
The Commission has decided to send reasoned opinions to 22 Member States for their failure to inform the Commission of measures taken to implement Directive 2006/100/EC providing for technical adaptations to the Directives on professional qualifications further to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union on 1 January 2007. This Directive updates, amongst others, all the lists of qualifications which benefit from automatic recognition by completing them with the corresponding Bulgarian and Romanian qualifications. The deadline for transposing Directive 2006/100/EC expired on 1 January 2007. Only Bulgaria, Finland, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia have already brought into force all the necessary provisions.
As long as the Directive is not implemented into national law, professionals holding Bulgarian or Romanian qualifications risk enduring needlessly bureaucratic and slow procedures before being able to exercise their right to work anywhere in the European Union and the potential users of the services of these professionals may be deprived of the opportunity to benefit from their expertise.
Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden – company law
The Commission has decided to send reasoned opinions to Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden for failing to implement the Directive 2003/58 amending the First company law directive on disclosure requirements for limited liability companies by the indicated deadline of 31 December 2006.
Â
