Thursday, August 19, 2004

Frog bashing

Not me this time, honest guv! No less a person than outgoing EU environment commissioner Margot Wallström – soon to take charge of charge of communications strategy – is having a go at the French for their lamentable record on implementing EU environment law.

Many EU countries have dragged their feat in transposing EU laws onto their national statute books, or have done so incorrectly, she says, but top of the list of defaulters is France, with 38 failures. Next in line is Italy, with 33, and Ireland tips the scale with 29, despite Ahern’s love-in with the community during his presidency. Unsurprisingly, Greece comes well up the list, with 26 laws not fully transposed, followed by Spain. Bottom of the defaulters list are goodie-two-shoes Denmark and Sweden.

According to AFP, by the end of 2003 there were 88 cases of environmental laws not being transposed on time, while in 118 cases they were not correctly transposed. Most shortcomings concerned water, waste, nature protection and environmental impact assessments.

For more details click here and for a list of leading cases, click here.

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