Romania appears to be doing better than many other member states at applying EU law. Last year, there were 46 infringement cases open, ranking the country ninth in the EU. Overall, the European Commission reported an improvement in compliance with EU law, with the total number of infringement cases down by 15 percent in 2011 on the previous year – 1775 compared to 2100.

Although Romania had the fewest number of infringement cases in its reference group, the total was up on 2009 and 2010, when there were 32 and 36 infringements respectively. However, Romania was still performing much better than the other states in the same reference group; Hungary had 54 open infringements, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands 65 and 71 respectively, Portugal 84, Belgium 117, and Greece 123.

Romania's key infringements, or most serious transgressions of EU law, were restrictive access to natural gas transmission networks, insufficiently opened energy markets due to regulated prices, negative impact of tourism on the environment in Sulina (Danube Delta) and failure to implement the EU's data retention directive. Romania's infringements were fairly evenly spread across the different policy areas of EU law. Energy and environment saw six infringements each, internal market and services had eight, as did energy, while taxation recorded nine. The remaining ten infringements were in other policy areas. As in 2010, the EC brought no court cases against Romania and no cases were referred for fines for late transposition of directives.

Romania also solved some compliance issues in 2011, for example, by changing its laws on water policy to comply with the water framework directive. The tender procedure for work at the Craiova power plant, which violated public procurement legislation, was also canceled.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com