About half of the new Spanish legislation derives from decisions taken in the European Union. 46% of the laws that were approved in the Cortes Generales in 2024 came from European regulations, according to a report prepared by the European Parliament office in Spain. Eleven of the 24 laws published by the Official State Gazette last year came from rules adopted at the community level, such as the tax on multinationals, the family conciliation law, the law that regulates the exchange of criminal records or the law that establishes a single market for digital services.
Five of these laws of European origin were a transposition of directives while another six did not reach that level, although they do draw on the line set by European institutions, such as energy measures, the transport sector or education. The European Parliament includes the amnesty in the laws approved with European references. “This Law justifies part of its provisions in European commitments on human rights and, specifically, in article 3 of Directive (EU) 2017/541 of March 15, 2017, relating to the fight against terrorism. The norm also refers to the approval that the European Union makes of the institution of amnesty in various provisions,” the document states.
The percentage of legislation linked to community policy remains within the usual range, with the exception of 2023 when the figure increased to 72% due to the legislative stoppage due to early elections, which caused parliamentary activity to be fundamentally limited to mandatory transposition. of European rules. “During the previous five years, the weight of European decisions was reflected in 53% of the regulations adopted in Spain, among them those that included the transposition of the Directive on the impact of plastics, the tax cooperation in the EU, that of Audiovisual Communication Services or that of the single railway space for the EU”, expresses the European Chamber.
Beyond the texts with the rank of law that pass through the Congress and the Senate, in 2024, 20 regulations were approved in the Council of Ministers that also transpose European rules through royal decrees that “mostly transpose directives related to Politics Common Agricultural or Fishing and, to a lesser extent, with transportation, health or working conditions.” “Notable among them are the Royal Decree that establishes a new safe-conduct format based on the EU provisional travel document; which increases the protection of workers against exposure to carcinogens in the workplace; which approves the Statute of the Independent Whistleblower Protection Authority to protect people who report irregularities within public or private organizations; or the one that includes the rules of entry, residence and work in Spain for temporary workers, highly qualified workers, researchers, students in internships and nationals of third countries,” the report states.
However, there are still 87 directives pending transposition. For most of them, Spain still has room because the deadline does not reach until 2025 or 2026. However, for 29 of them the transposition deadline has already expired. When a member state does not adapt its legislation to European standards, infringement procedures are opened that involve two warnings from the European Commission and can end up in the Court of Justice of the EU. Spain is the country with the most open infringement procedures, according to data from the European Parliament.
In total, Spain has 90 open files. They are followed by Poland (88), Greece (81) and Bulgaria (79).
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