Country data: Finland

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): 0.8% (last report: 0.6%) – a further increase of 0.2 percentage points, but Finland is still one of the five Member States with the lowest deficit (fifth best result).        
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Except in year 2016 when the Member States had to transpose an unusually large number of directives, Finland’s performance on this criterion has constantly been good. In the last 2 years, Finland managed to maintain a low transposition deficit despite the difficulties linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it did not transpose 7 of the 26 single market directives (27%) 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 Finland could organise the timely transposition of directives even better. Transposition is an ongoing process and any let-up may result in the deficit quickly increasing.

Overdue directives: 8 (last report: 6) including 3 on consumers. No directive is more than 2 years overdue.

Average delay in transposing directives: 4.7 months (last report: 3.8 months) – an increase of 0.9 month, but Finland is still the Member State with the third shortest average delay.   
EU average = 8.6 months

Of Finland’s 8 outstanding directives, 7 have been due for less than 6 months.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.1% (last report: 1.2%) – a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points.  
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 11 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Finland’s conformity deficit is below the EU average deficit.

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: 11 (2 new cases and 6 cases closed; last report: 15 pending cases) – a marked decrease of 4 cases (and the third highest percentage decrease among Member States).   
EU average = 27 cases

Despite some changes, Finland has always had a low number of pending cases, well below the EU average. As in the previous reporting period, the country has the second lowest number of pending cases among all Member States.

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 2  cases were launched against Finland, which is below the EU average of 4 new cases launched in the reporting period. However, only 6 Finnish cases have been resolved since December 2020, which is less than the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: financial services (3 cases). These make up 27% of all cases.

Average case duration: 35.6 months for the 10 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 26.3 months) – this is a marked increase of 9.3 months, but average case duration is still shorter than the EU average.    
EU average = 42.8 months

The average duration of Finnish cases has increased by 29% in the last 3 years. However, Finland is one of six Member States whose average case duration is below the 36-month indicative target. Most of the Finnish cases (8 out of 10) have a moderate duration (18 months on average). Only 2 cases have lengthy durations: a 11-year-old case on air transport and a 6-year-old case on health and consumers. Since December 2020, Finland has also managed to resolve 5 cases that had an average duration of around 18 months.

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 223.1 months for the only single market case at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: no such case).         
EU average = 46.8 months

Finland managed recently to resolve one case on air transport, more than 18 years after the Court ruling, with the entry into force of the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement (29 June 2020). As a result of this single case, Finland is now the Member State taking the longest time to comply among the 23 Member States that complied with the Court rulings in the last 5 years.

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Finland’s performance remained excellent.

• Results for all indicators improved and placed first or second among Member States in the respective areas.
• A stable and very good performance for the last 3 years in all indicators.
• The country scored 100% in both satisfaction surveys.

• Caseload –small
  Submitted cases – 19 (12 in 2020)
  Received cases – 6 (11 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted – 31 (32 in 2020)

• Resolution rate – 83% (91% in 2020)
• Handling time (home centre)
  Reply in 7 days: 95% (75% in 2020) – very good
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 68% (73% in 2020) – poor
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 89% (73% in 2020 ) – good

• Cases not accepted within 30 days:  52% (45% in 2020) – poor

• Handling time (lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days: 83% (91% in 2020) – good

• Cases closed in 10 weeks:  83% (73% in 2020) – good

• Staffing
  sufficient

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms) by Finnish public authorities was 12 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 49.86 days.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best)	4.9	3.6
Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing)	92.5%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	12 days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	0.9 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	25.1%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	14%	25%
No calls for bids	3%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	6.9%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	19%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	56%	64%
Decision speed (days)	88	99
SME contractors	59%	61%
SME bids	56%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	27%	31%
Missing calls for bids	0%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	6%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	0%	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	1.4	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	0.0	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	1.9	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.4	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	1.1	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	0.9	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	0.0	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	n/a	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	n/a	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020)	97.6%	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)	9.8%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	49.9 days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.53%	0.48%