Monitoring of the application of Community law. 11th annual report 1993

Adopting the report by Mr VERDE I ALDEA (PSE, E), the European Parliament noted that Commission action under Article 169 of the EC Treaty had led to more or less the same number of infringement procedures as were instituted in the previous year (viz. 1,209 in 1993 compared with 1,216 in 1992), that the number of reasoned opinions had increased from 248 in 1992 to 352 in 1993 and that 44 actions had been brought before the Court of Justice in 1993, compared with 64 in 1992. It regretted that transposition was not entirely satisfactory, given that there were still numerous delays in sectors such as insurance, public service contracts, company law, intellectual and industrial property and new technologies. In addition, the rate of transposition in agriculture and the environment had fallen somewhat and the same applied to certain "health and safety" directives in the social area. In addition, some directives on the internal market had not been transposed completely, thereby adversely affecting how the market functioned. Parliament also regretted the delay in work to codify Community legislation and felt that efforts were needed here. On the same subject, it felt that official codification would not suffice and that Community law would need to be reformulated in accordance with the proper legislative procedures. At the same time, the European Parliament deplored the fact that certain states persisted in not complying with the judgments of the Court of Justice, some of which dated from 1981, and called on the Commission to impose penalties on these states. It was also concerned that preliminary ruling procedures took so long (average of 20.4 months in 1993), even though the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance had been expanded. Over and above statistics on the application of Community law, the European Parliament called for improved transparency of European legislation and therefore called for the CELEX database to be reorganised so as to make Community texts clearer and allow all European citizens to consult them. It also called on the Commission to examine the cost of access to legislative documents and to ensure that access was more affordable for lawyers and magistrates. It also felt that Community legislation should be a compulsory subject on university law courses. Finally, it called on the Commission to compile information which could be included in its future annual reports in the fields of justice and home affairs.�