Non-compliance in the European Union:: pathology or statistical artefact?

Does the European Union have a compliance problem? This article argues that we have simply no evidence that the EU suffers from a serious compliance deficit which is claimed by the European Commission and academics alike. First, there are no data that measure the actual level of non-compliance in the EU member states. Second, the statistics published by the European Commission, which allow us to compare non-compliance between the different member states, are often not properly interpreted. If we control for changes in the Commission's enforcement strategy, on the one hand, and the rising items of legislation to be complied with as well as member states that have to comply, on the other hand, the level of non-compliance in the EU has not significantly increased over time. Moreover, non-compliance varies significantly and is focused on four particular member states that account for up to two-thirds of all violations of Community law.