More than half of the laws approved in Spain in the last five years have European origin

For a year now, Spanish citizens who decide to register as de facto couples have the same vacation days as if they had joined in marriage. There is also a paid leave of five days a year to care for sick family members or cohabitants. These rights have reached Spanish legislation promoted from Europe, such as 53% of the laws that have been approved in the Cortes during the last legislature of the European Parliament (2019-2024). Of the 246 regulations that have been passed in the Congress and the Senate during that period, 51 apply European regulations or transpose directives and another 81 contain references to recommendations, programs or community initiatives.

In 2023, 72% of the laws approved in Spain were of European origin. Of the 25 that went ahead, seven responded to the application of community regulations or the mandate to transpose European directives into the Spanish legal system. The law that regulates the protection of people who report regulatory violations and the fight against corruption is an example of transposition of a 2019 European directive. Another of the laws with clear continental influence, whose legal text refers to two Parliament resolutions European, is known as animal welfare, which encourages the responsible use of pets and punishes situations of abuse.

The previous year, in 2022, the percentage of laws with European influence was 57%, including the regulation that includes the rules that Member States must apply when designing their strategic plans to adapt to the new Common Agricultural Policy ( PAC). In 2021, 51% of the laws had community origin; in 2020, 50%, and in 2019, 42%.

The rights that we have mentioned at the beginning of this article, which before the dissolution of the Cortes in 2023 were going to be part of what is known as the Family Law, are just an example of norms that emanate from Europe, specifically from the European Directive. of Conciliation 2019/1158, which, as its name reveals, has been setting the course for Member States in matters of conciliation since 2019. Maria Julià, professor of Public International and EU Law at the UOC, explains that this increasingly close legislative relationship is closely linked to the deepening of the European integration process: “The legislative activity of the Union has increased greatly due, above all, to economic integration, which has involved extensive regulation in everything that is the configuration of the single market, necessary to guarantee the free movement of goods, people, services and capital and, right now, the regulation of digital services and the use of AI also opens the door to an increase in legislation in this field.”

The European Union legislates through different tools, some are binding and directly applicable in member countries and others are not. The most severe rule is the regulations, which must be applied in their entirety in all territories; Then, there are the directives, which are binding, but are integrated into the legislation of each country. “The objective of these regulations is, in those cases in which the States are more reluctant to give up the exercise of their national competence due to the matter, to try to establish a common minimum that all legislation complies with,” says Julià. The third binding instrument is the decisions, which must be taken into account only by those concerned or to whom it applies. And finally, there are recommendations and opinions, which are lower-ranking and non-binding instruments.

European directives do not reach the national legislation of the Member States in the same way. Countries incorporate and adapt them to their laws within the established deadline and then inform the European Commission in which initiatives the transposition is complied with. This must examine whether it has been done correctly, if what is established is complied with and if it is not in compliance, it can open an infringement procedure against said country before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

As of today, according to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Spain is pending transposition of 55 European directives, most of them with deadlines in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Two of them, related to greenhouse gases, greenhouse effect, should have been transposed before December 31, 2023, and three others had a deadline of March, April and May 2024. Julià explains that these delays are frequent: “The internal legislative procedure can be delayed, blocked or can take more than the account, or it may even consist of an incorrect or partial transposition of the norm, which can cause this delay and, in some cases, non-compliance, once the deadline for transposition of the directive has passed.”

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