Why Europe lacks consistent regulations

Last week, the European Commission issued a bunch of papers about the financial markets including the results of a survey on post-trade costs, a revision to bank capital and remuneration rules and more ... but the most interesting document (pdf link) is probably the one that discussed the state of transposition of various directives under the Commissioner for the Internal Markets, Charlie McCreevy.

Here's a list of 22 Directives that have still to be transposed and they're over two years old (doubleclick image to see larger version):

It kind of amused me that the equality of women is the oldest on the books, except it surprised me that it was Czech Republic and Belgium and not Italy at fault**! 

Then there's a chart of directives incorrectly transposed:

This one's important as it feeds into our current research project on the Payment Services Directive (have you participated yet? win a free membership or possibly copy of the SEPA/PSD book! click here to join in).

And yes, Italy is at the top of this list too. 

As the report states: "Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece and France are responsible
for 38% of all infringement proceedings. Already since July 2004, Italy
remains the Member State with most infringement procedures irrespective
of its reduction of infringement procedures (by 34%)."

For those of us interested in EU rules and regulations, these are all worth a read.

** if you're not aware, Italy is led by a gentleman called Silvio Berlusconi - "Hello, Meester Obama" - who is wrapped up in a bit of scandal with girls and parties ... typical politician ay? 

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