The regional transposition of EU directives: a comparison of Flemish, Walloon and Scottish performances

This article examines the transposition performance of three regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Scotland. This paper introduces – for the first time – regional internal market scoreboards, mapping their transposition performances in terms of timeliness and conformity in the period 2010–2014. These regional internal market scoreboards are based on systematic transposition reports produced by the regional governments which were cross-checked against the information provided by the Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU. We then look into a couple of factors that could possibly explain the regional performances and the differences between them by conducting a qualitative study of the transposition processes of a selection of 16 directives. We looked for evidence of the explanatory value of three internal factors: (1) complexity of competence division and coordination, (2) available expertise in the administration, and (3) political attention. For this we base our analysis on official documentation of the transposition processes and interviews with lead officials who worked on the transposition of these directives. We find similar transposition success rates but a marked difference in the duration of transposition delays and a striking contrast as to obstructing factors.