France Worst at Implementing Environment Laws

EU member states have a very poor record in implementing EU law, the European Commission said Thursday. A survey looking at environment law in 2003 found there were 88 instances in which environment rules had not been made into national law on time. "Implementation of EU law is bad. I hope the survey's findings will give member states reason to improve their record," Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström said. France is the worst offender of the 15 "old" member states, which are the only ones covered by the report. It's at the bottom of the league both for missing deadlines and for incorrectly transposing EU environment law. By contrast, Nordic countries are the best behaved of the bunch. At the top of the class is Denmark, followed closely by Sweden and Finland. The report said that laws relating to water, waste, nature protection and environmental impact assessments had been the most neglected by member states. (EUobserver.com)