Country data: Luxembourg

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): 1.8% (last report: 1.9%) – a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points. Luxembourg is one of six Member States that managed to reduce their deficit in the reporting period.    
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Luxembourg’s performance on this criterion is quite uneven. After having the highest one-year decrease in deficit in December 2019, it had the highest increase in December 2020. Although moderate, this year’s decrease may show that Luxembourg is back on the right track. Luxembourg did not transpose 23% of the single market directives (6 out of 26) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). Given the constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Luxembourg should probably make further efforts to reduce its number of overdue directives and the length of delay (see below).

Overdue directives: 18 (last report: 20), including 4 on environment. Two directives are more than 2 years overdue (Directive 2012/34/EU on the Single European railway area and Directive (EU) 2016/2370 amending Directive 2012/34/EU as regards the opening of the market for domestic passenger transport services by rail and the governance of the railway infrastructure).

Average delay in transposing directives: 15.7 months (last report: 8.3 months) – a marked increase of 7.4 months (second highest increase among Member States). The delay is now much longer than the EU average.             
EU average = 8.6 months

Luxembourg added a second long-overdue directive (due for 2 years or more) to its backlog. Six other outstanding directives are more than 1 year overdue. However, the long delay for long-overdue directives is partly offset by the low delay in directives with a more recent transposition date. These include 6 directives due for less than 6 months.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 0.8% (last report: 0.9%) – a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points. This is well below the EU average and not so far from the 0.5% proposed target.          
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 8 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Luxembourg is now the Member State with the lowest conformity deficit (in second position last year).

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: 13 (2 new cases and 7 cases closed; last report: 18 pending cases) – a marked decrease of 5 cases, the second highest percentage decrease (-28%) in the reporting period.       
EU average = 27 cases

In November 2010, Luxembourg significantly reduced its number of infringement cases (by around 50%). Since then, it has managed to remain one of the Member States with the fewest cases (third position this year), well below the EU average.

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 Luxembourg, which is below the EU average of 4 new cases launched in a year. However, 7  cases involving Luxembourg have been resolved since December 2020, a little lower than the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: transport and direct taxation (3 cases each). Together, these make up 46% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 38.9 months for the 13 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 24.4 months) – this is a huge increase of 14.5 months (highest increase in the reporting period). Luxembourg is no longer one of the Member States with the shortest average duration of cases.              
EU average = 42.8 months

Luxembourg’s average duration of cases has steadily increased in the last 3 years (+71%). Luxembourg has 2 cases on air transport that have been running for 8 and 11 years. Their duration is only partly offset by the launch of 2 new cases (less than 1 year old) and the resolution of 6 cases with a moderate average duration of around 9 months.

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 85.1 months for the five single market cases at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: 50.6 months).   
EU average = 46.8 months

Luxembourg is one of five Member States whose average time to comply increased the most in the reporting period (+34.5 months). This is mainly because 1 case on air transport was recently solved more than 18 years after the Court ruling, with the entry into force of the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement (29 June 2020). One other case, on water management and protection, needed more than 12 years for compliance, also pushing up the average. Luxembourg is now the Member State with the third highest compliance duration among the 23 Member States that complied with Court rulings in the last 5 years.

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Luxembourg performed well.

• Results for three indicators were above the EEA average.
• Results for four indicators increased, most noticeably for requests accepted within a week and requests replied to within the deadline, while the answering speed decreased.
• Luxembourg received a 100% score in the efforts-related satisfaction survey.

• Caseload – medium
  Submitted cases: 33 (32 in 2020)
  Received cases:16 (13 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted: 18 (16 in 2020)

• Resolution rate: 80% (77% in 2020)
• Handling time (as home centre)
  Reply in 7 days: 89% (74% in 2020) – good
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 97% (88% in 2020) – very good
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 92% (90% in 2020 ) – good

• Cases not accepted within 30 days: 78% (88% in 2020) - good

• Handling time (as lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days:  87% (69% in 2020) – good
  Cases closed in 10 weeks:  73% (54% in 2020) – good
• Staffing level
  Sufficient

No data available.

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)	96.7%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	n/a days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	2.0 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	20.3%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	18%	25%
No calls for bids	6%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	3.2%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	1%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	69%	64%
Decision speed (days)	69	99
SME contractors	61%	61%
SME bids	88%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	10%	31%
Missing calls for bids	0%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	97%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	91%	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	3.2	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	2.5	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	2.8	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.4	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	2.1	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	1.7	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	0.0	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.80	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 1.05	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020)	99.1%	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 the 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)	5.6%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	n/a days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.12%	0.48%