EU ‘Rule of Law’? – 27 'infringement' cases against the UK, to be judged by the EU itself

And all 27 member countries are on “the Naughty Step”

Montage © Facts4EU.Org

Despite having left the EU, the UK is still being penalised by the Commission

The EU Commission has now produced so many EU laws, Directives, Regulations, and Rules that it is almost impossible for EU member countries to understand them all, let alone comply with them.

Yesterday Facts4EU.Org analysed the official EU Commission register of infringement proceedings. It totalled an extraordinary 2,030 items. Every single EU member country has transgressed and the number per country varies from 109 (Spain) down to 33 (Denmark).

The home country of the EU Commission, Belgium, was the third-worst offender, with 106 case numbers against its name.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Infringement numbers by EU member country

Information correct as at 9.00am Thurs 29 Sept 2022.

[Source: EU Commission official register.]

This is “a nice little earner” for the EU Commission, in fines imposed

According to the EU treaties, the Commission may take legal action – an infringement procedure – against an EU country that fails to implement EU law. The Commission may refer the issue to the Court of Justice of the EU, which can impose financial penalties.

The procedure can take years but in end the Commission almost “always gets its man”. And this means money. The way the fines are calculated uses a complicated formula. Below is the minimum lump sum fine per country in 2022 and this applies to each and every case. On top of this the Court can – and does – impose daily fines.

Minimum lump sum fines per country and per case

Germany : € 11,277,000
France : € 8,458,000
Italy : € 7,014,000
Spain : € 5,097,000
Poland : € 3,270,000
Netherlands : € 3,022,000
Sweden : € 1,985,000
Belgium : € 1,940,000
Austria : € 1,692,000
Romania : € 1,692,000
Ireland : € 1,376,000
Czechia : € 1,331,000
Denmark : € 1,308,000
Portugal : € 1,286,000
Greece : € 1,173,000
Finland : € 1,150,000
Hungary : € 1,060,000
Slovakia : € 722,000
Bulgaria : € 632,000
Croatia : € 496,000
Lithuania : € 474,000
Luxembourg : € 383,000
Slovenia : € 383,000
Latvia : € 316,000
Estonia : € 271,000
Cyprus : € 226,000
Malta : € 180,000

Readers will have observed that the United Kingdom is not listed, despite there being 27 live cases. See our ‘Observations’ below for our comment on this.

Here is what the Commission says about fines:-

“The sanctions imposed by the Court of Justice of the EU may be composed of a lump sum payment, to penalise the continuation of the infringement, and a daily penalty payment, to prompt the Member State concerned to bring the infringement to an end as soon as possible.”

To give one example, Poland is currently under a fine of €1 million euros per day for just one case against it.

What is the United Kingdom in the dock for?

As of yesterday morning (Thurs 29 Sept), the UK stands accused of 27 offences which fall under the EU’s following categories:-

Budget
Environment
Eurostat (provision of statistics)
Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union
Health and Food Safety
Home Affairs
Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship
Legal Service
Mobility and Transport
Secretariat General
Taxation and Customs Union

Observations

Thanks to Theresa May’s disastrous negotiations with the EU, the EU can and does continue to issue legal actions against the UK, which are all to be judged by the highly political Court of Justice of the European Union, rather than an independent tribunal which would be normal under any international agreement.

The EU continually claims to be an organisation where “the rule of law” is sacrosanct. Our report above shows that not one single member of the EU has obeyed the EU Commission’s rules.

As with so many other proclamations from the Commission (for example “unity” and “solidarity”), the “rule of law” could not be further from the truth.

Where it comes to the United Kingdom, we would have been adamant with the EU during the negotiations over our departure that all legal actions would cease on the day of leaving. Furthermore, we would have insisted that any disputes over the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU would be judged by an independent international tribunal, not by the EU’s own judges.

Rejoiners are fond of pointing to things like this as being examples of the failure of Brexit. They are not. They are failures created by a Remainer Parliament that failed to respect the wishes of the British people, as expressed in the largest democratic vote in the UK’s history.

By the time we had a vaguely pro-Brexit government under Boris Johnson, the damage had been done. We would have left with no deal, as regular readers know, but Mr Johnson chose to modify Theresa May’s deal in what little time was left.

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[ Sources: EU Commission ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Fri 30 Sept 2022

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Reader Comments 9

1. Garth Hodgson , Friday, September 30, 2022, 07:11:

re EU Rule of Law:: Whilst Theresa May was a terrible PM, and behaved in a truly treacherous way, it was Boris Johnson who agreed and signed the Withdrawal Agreement. Why, when in Dec 2019 he won the General Election with a comfortable majority, did he not insist on leaving without a deal? Was it his intention to prioritise a trade deal (which was weak anyway), or did too many Con MPs insist that no deal would be blocked? He was surely aware that the WA would lead to colonial/vassal status; he had described it in such terms himself. Or did he think he could amend the deal later? He must have known that EU negotiators (acting on behalf of the member states, not the EU itself - which is not a party to any deal, despite its pronouncements to the contrary) would ever agree. The ONLY way to leave NOW is to annul the 2020 WA and repeal the 2020 EU (W) Act. What an absolute mess!

2. Brexit Lover , Friday, September 30, 2022, 07:47:

Pathetic EU.
Corrupt kangaroo courts. These clowns dont even follow their own rules!!
Tell em to fcuk off!!!!
4th Reich idiots

3. Martyn Green , Friday, September 30, 2022, 08:43:

We Britsh don't recognise them!

4. John Hardman , Friday, September 30, 2022, 09:37:

I have more respect for Poo Tin then the EU Far Right.

5. jon livesey , Friday, September 30, 2022, 17:57:

It's fine to let off steam about the EU, but it would be a good idea to note some things that are economically important. First, most of the silly market over-reaction from last week has been more or less unwound, and despite what you can read in the headlines it never affected the actual economy anyway. But now imagine what would have been the case if we had still been in the EU, or even worse, in the euro. We would currently be stuck with policies - and if the euro-enthusiasts had had their way, an absurd exchange rate. We would be faced with smiling eurocrats telling us that we have to sign-up to "share" our energy to prop up German industry, and UK companies would be facing the prospect of new EU taxes on "windfall" profits. Compared to that, the EU kidding itself that it can sue the UK in its own Courts is pretty much nothing.
The next five years are going to be very interesting, because Truss' new policies are at least as radical as Thatcher in '79 and exit from the ERM, both of which were greeted as disasters by the elites, but which in the end had very significant stimulative effects on the real economy..

6. Buster , Friday, September 30, 2022, 20:43:

Any agreement was always going to include provision to bring legal action for alleged breaches committed in the past. The environmental case against the UK, for example, nearly all concern our treatment of waste water - sewage. You have to be an idiot to think what has happened with sewage since we left the EU is anything other than a disaster.
As for the clowns who still think ‘no deal’ was ever a thing: grow up. You petulant toddlers have damaged our country - mostly because you don’t like brown people and are so dim you think brown people mostly come from the EU.

7. Amara , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 06:10:

Buster, I would appreciate if you stopped calling us 'brown people' just because we're from a different ethnicity then yours. You sound more racist then any Brexiteers I know and I have no problem with them, surprisingly to you perhaps. And FYI I AM from the EU. So what is your point again (should you have any)?

8. Brexit Lover , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 06:41:

7 ;buster never makes any relevant points, he's just a rancid anti democratic remoaner who hates Britain and loves the EU and cannot accept the referendum result. Moans about the deal whilst ignoring the role of the traitors who battled for the EU rather than the UK. Remainder, rejoiners Horrible people!!

9. Ashley Great Britain , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 07:56:

It's funny. All the remainer/rejoiners I've seen and heard fit nicely into the Liberal,lovey,lefty group.
They are the arrogant town Council chair board type.
They plod along thinking everything is rosey because their life is so sweet.
Anyone who thinks our Eu membership was beneficial, are either complicit,delusional, or both.

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