Country data: Austria

All comparisons are with the figures for 10 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

The last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Member State authorities to address pressing priorities and affected their performance in transposing EU rules to some degree. In this context, the Commission has taken a number of extraordinary measures aimed at relieving the strain on Member States’ administrative resources. Nevertheless, it has also made clear that the Member States’ legal obligations to transpose EU directives in time remain unchanged.

 

Transposition deficit (percentage of all directives not transposed): 1.9% (last report: 1.2%) – a further increase of 0.7 percentage points. Austria’s deficit is now almost double the 1% target set by the European Council.               
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Austria’s performance on this criterion is quite uneven. It sometimes managed to drop below the 1% threshold but it often missed this target. This was the case the last 2 years. In addition, it did not transpose 11 of the 26 single market directives (42%) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). This shows that Austria may have some difficulties organising the timely transposition of directives. Constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not help. However, transposition is an ongoing process and any let-up may result in the deficit quickly increasing.

Overdue directives: 19 (last report: 12). No sector in particular to mention. One directive is more than 2 years overdue (Directive 2012/34/EU on the Single European railway area).

Average delay in transposing directives: 9.4 months (last report: 7.3 months) – an increase of 2.1 months, and the average delay is now longer than the EU average.            
EU average = 8.6 months

Austria has one very long-overdue directive (due for more than 6 years) that weighs a lot on its average delay. However, this long duration is offset by 11 out of its 18 other outstanding directives being overdue by less than 6 months.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.5% (last report: 1.9%) – a marked decrease of 0.4 percentage points, but the deficit is still above the EU average.      
EU average = 1.3%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

The number of new infringement proceedings that the Commission has launched against Member States for incorrectly transposing single market directives has more than halved in 2 years. Nevertheless, the number of ongoing cases is still high. With 15 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Austria is one of five Member States that have both a high transposition deficit and a high percentage of incorrectly transposed directives.

Evolution of transposition deficit

 

Evolution of conformity deficit

 

All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

 

Pending single market cases: 29 (4 new cases and 10 cases closed; last report: 35 pending cases) – a marked decrease of 6 cases and close to the EU average number of cases.
EU average = 27 cases

After a significant increase in these last 2 years (around 30%), Austria’s number of cases is back to its usual level (between 23 and 29 cases).

The Commission launched 120 new cases against Member States in the reporting period (besides those for late transposition), and these were still pending on 1 December 2021. A total of 4 cases were launched against, which is in line with the EU average of new cases launched in the reporting period. However, 10 Austrian cases have been resolved since December 2020, which is better than the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: the environment (9 cases), in particular atmospheric pollution and environmental impact (3 cases each); and transport (6), including 3 on road and rail transport. Together, these make up 52% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 45.6 months for the 25 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 36.5 months) – this is a new marked increase of 9.1 months and the longest average case duration ever for Austria. It is now above the EU average.
EU average = 42.8 months

Austria’s average case duration has significantly increased in the last 3 years (+38%). Of the 25 Austrian pending cases, 7 cases have been running for more than 5 years (with a 11-year-old case on air transport and a 10-year-old case on free movement of persons and EU citizenship). The launch of 4 new cases (less than 1 year old) and the resolution of 6 cases with an average duration of around 2 years have a moderate impact on the calculation.

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 72.5 months for the 6 single market cases at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: 54.7 months).   
EU average = 46.8 months

Austria is one of 12 Member States whose average time to comply increased in the reporting period (+17.8 month). This is mainly because a case on air transport was recently resolved more than 18 years after the Court ruling, with the entry into force of the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement (29 June 2020). It took Austria almost 12 years to comply with another ruling, on education, which also pushed up the average.

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Austria’s performance was excellent.

• Results for four indicators were above the EEA average, with two of them being in the top five of the respective areas.
• The percentage of requests answered within the agreed deadline increased significantly.
• The performance for three indicators decreased, especially for the requests accepted within 1 week.

• Caseload – very large
  Submitted cases: 74 (32 in 2020)
  Received cases: 187 (102 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted: 141 (50 in 2020)

• Resolution rate: 72% (74% in 2020)
• Handling time (as home centre)
  Reply in 7 days: 59% (75% in 2020) – poor
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 82% (81% in 2020) – good
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 77% (75% in 2020) – good

• Cases not accepted within 30 days: 42% (64% in 2020) – very poor

• Handling time (as lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days: 63% (56% in 2020) – poor
  Cases closed within 10 weeks: 28% (52% in 2020) – very poor
• Staffing level
  Needs improvement

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms) by Austrian public authorities was 14 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 49.78 days.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best)	4.0	3.6
Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing)	81.4%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	14 days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	1.1 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	26.1%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	25%	25%
No calls for bids	10%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	4.8%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	5%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	34%	64%
Decision speed (days)	83	99
SME contractors	57%	61%
SME bids	73%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	12%	31%
Missing calls for bids	4%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	48%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	69%	11%

Note: A typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used for the EU average for all indicators except the publication rate. Due to delays in data availability, publication rate results are based on 2020 data.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Restrictiveness indicator – architect	3.4	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	2.0	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	2.9	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.6	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	1.8	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	3.2	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	1.1	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.80	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.90	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20g (2020)	n/a	84.2%

Note: The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of restrictiveness for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption or cross-border mobility. The level of restrictiveness is measured on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive). 

Indicator	2021	EU average
Access to public financial support (% of SMEs indicating deterioration)	13.7%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	49.8 days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.22%	0.48%