Transposition (Poland)
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): 1.5% (last report: 1.8%) – a decrease of 0.3 percentage points. Poland 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%
Poland has gone below the 1% threshold set by the European Council in December 2019, after years of constant effort to go and stay there, but the constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic probably weighed on its performance. The slight improvement in the reporting period may mean that things are going back in the right direction. However, Poland did not transpose 10 of the 26 single market directives (38%) 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 Poland may have some difficulties organising the timely transposition of directives. Transposition is an ongoing process and any let-up may result in the deficit quickly increasing.
Overdue directives: 15 (last report: 18). No sector in particular to mention. No directive is more than 2 years overdue.
Average delay in transposing directives: 7.3 months (last report: 8.3 months) – a slight decrease of 1 month. Poland is one of nine Member States that reduced their delay in transposing directives in the reporting period.
EU average = 8.6 months
Poland managed to transpose 1 long-overdue directive (due for 2 years or more). In addition, most of its outstanding directives (10 out of 15) have been overdue for less than 6 months.
Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.6% (last report: 1.6%) – a stable result and still among the Member States with the highest deficit.
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 16 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Poland 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
Infringements (Poland)
All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.
Pending single market cases: 37 (7 new cases and 9 cases closed, including 4 on transport; last report: 39 pending cases) – a further decrease (of 2 cases) but still well above the EU average number of cases.
EU average = 27 cases
The number of Polish cases significantly decreased between December 2015 and December 2017 (-34%), after which it started to rise again. However, in the reporting period, Poland managed to curb this increasing trend (although moderately).
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 7 cases were launched against Poland, which is almost double the EU average of 4 new cases launched in the reporting period. However, 9 Polish cases have been resolved since December 2020, which is better than the EU average (8).
Problematic sectors: the environment (11 cases), including 5 on atmospheric pollution; energy (6 cases. Together, these make up 46% of all pending cases.
Average case duration: 46.3 months for the 33 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 45.4 months) – this is a slight increase of 0.5 months and the duration of cases is longer than the EU average.
EU average = 42.8 months
The average case duration of Polish cases has increased by 19% in the last 3 years. Three cases on indirect taxation, air transport, and free movement of persons and EU citizenship have been ongoing for more than 10 years; 6 other cases have been running for between 5 and 10 years. These have a considerable effect on the calculation of the average duration. However, the launch of 7 new cases (less than 1 year old) and the resolution of 8 cases with an average duration of 4 years also have some impact on the final result.
Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 28.2 months for the 11 single market cases at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: 25.6 months).
EU average = 46.8 months
The situation in Poland remained quite stable (+2.6 months). Three cases that took Poland a moderate amount of time (1.5 years) to comply with have now been closed for more than 5 years and are no longer part of the calculation, while 1 new case with similar compliance duration (2 years) was solved in the reporting period.
Evolution of infringement cases
Internal Market Information System (Poland)
Performance – Poland performed well.
- Results for three indicators were above or at the EEA average.
- The percentage of requests answered within the deadline increased noticeably.
- Four indicators decreased slightly.
Requests accepted within one week (%)
Requests answered by the deadline agreed in IMI (%)
Satisfaction with timeliness of replies - as rated by counterparts (%)
Satisfaction with efforts made - as rated by counterparts (%)
Speed in answering requests (days)
Technical regulations information system (Poland)
SOLVIT (Poland)
- Caseload – large
Submitted cases: 149 (130 in 2020)
Received cases: 23 (25 in 2020)
Cases not accepted: 156 (209 in 2020)
- Resolution rate: 91% (88% in 2020)
- Handling time (as home centre)
Reply within 7 days: 80% (77% in 2020) – good
Cases prepared within 30 days: 60% (51% in 2020) – poor
Solutions accepted within 7 days: 64% (61% in 2020) – poor
Cases not accepted within 30 days: 33% (18% in 2020) – very poor
- Handling time (as lead centre)
Cases accepted within 7 days: 74% (80% in 2020) – good
Cases closed within 10 weeks: 61% (64% in 2020) – poor - Staffing level
Sufficient
Payment delays (Poland)
In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms) by Polish public authorities was 21 days.
The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 60.67 days.
Responsive administration and burden of regulation (Poland)
| Indicator | 2021 | EU average |
|---|---|---|
| Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best) | 2.8 | 3.6 |
| Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing) | 69.6% | n/a |
| Payment delays by public authorities | 21 days | 15.7 days |
| Time to resolve insolvency | 3.0 years | 2.0 years |
| Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies) | 12.6% | n/a |
Access to public procurement (Poland)
| Indicator | 2021 | EU average |
|---|---|---|
| Single bidder | 50% | 25% |
| No calls for bids | 7% | 6% |
| Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP) | 7.5% | 5.9% |
| Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer) | 3% | 5% |
| Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid) | 50% | 64% |
| Decision speed (days) | 66 | 99 |
| SME contractors | 58% | 61% |
| SME bids | 62% | 73% |
| Procedures divided into lots | 46% | 31% |
| Missing calls for bids | 1% | 1% |
| Missing seller registration numbers | 82% | 29% |
| Missing buyer registration numbers | 64% | 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.
Access to services and services markets (Poland)
| Indicator | 2021 | EU average |
|---|---|---|
| Restrictiveness indicator – architect | 2.7 | 2.5 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – accountant | 2.8 | 1.7 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer | 2.5 | 2.4 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer | 3.5 | 3.4 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent | 0.0 | 1.3 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent | 2.5 | 2.2 |
| Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide | 0.1 | 1.2 |
| Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020) | € 0.92 | € 0.88 |
| Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020) | € 1.80 | € 1.53 |
| Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020) | 55.8% | 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).
Access to finance (Poland)
| Indicator | 2021 | EU average |
|---|---|---|
| Access to public financial support (% of SMEs indicating deterioration) | 13.9% | 11.3% |
| Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey) | 60.7 days | 52.5 days |
| Venture capital investments (% of GDP) | 0.22% | 0.48% |