Single Market infringement cases

This section provides statistics on Single Market infringement proceedings open on 1 December 2025. All comparisons are with the figures for the last reporting date, 1 December 2024. The statistics do not include late transposition cases (known as “non-communication cases”), except in the “Case types” pie chart. This is to avoid counting such cases twice since the “Transposition” enforcement tool already covers them.

Infringements and the Single Market – why does it matter?

To make the Single Market work for all, common EU rules are in place, facilitating the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. These rules can only deliver their intended results if they are properly implemented and enforced throughout the EU.

It is a joint responsibility of the Member States and the EU Commission to ensure compliance and proper enforcement of the Single Market rules granting rights to citizens and companies. Member States must comply with EU rules they have agreed to as co-legislators. They must detect and remedy breaches of Single Market rules that happen within their respective jurisdictions. As mandated by Article 17(1) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), the Commission should ensure that all Member States implement and comply with Single Market rules. 

The Commission can take legal action, by initiating an infringement procedure in line with Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), against any Member State that fails to implement EU law. It may refer the issue to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which can impose financial penalties in certain cases. More about infringement procedures.

Monitoring infringements helps make the Single Market work better. It highlights the efforts that Member States are making to ensure that Single Market law is implemented properly and encourages them to improve their performance.

Recent developments

On 11 February 2025, the Commission adopted the Communication on implementation and simplification, A simpler and faster Europe, outlining that simplification must go hand in hand with stronger implementation of EU law. This includes closer cooperation with Member States to ensure correct and timely transposition, better administrative capacity and use of digital tools, clearer guidance for authorities and stakeholders, and systematic feedback from businesses and citizens through implementation dialogues. Where voluntary compliance fails, the Commission relies on infringement procedures to guarantee proper and uniform implementation and enforcement across the Single Market, as as highlighted by the Single Market Strategy.

Building on this, the Commmission issued the 2025 Overview Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement on 21 October 2025. The report summarises the main results of the Commission’s work across the 3 key components of the new drive to achieve a simpler and faster Europe.

Additionally, each member of the body of Commissioners has prepared an Annual Progress Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement under their portfolio, for the period from 1 January to 31 July 2025. These reports inform on the adoption of key initiatives, the results of stress tests and reality checks, implementation dialogues, and enforcement actions. They also, showcase key achievements and identify challenges that hinder effective implementation.

More about Simplification and implementation.

Key messages

• The situation has improved overall in 5 Member States (Belgium, Latvia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Austria) since December 2024. Conversely, overall performance has declined in other 5 Member States: Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden. 3 Member States (Croatia, Cyprus and Latvia) have performed better than the EU average (1 less than last year).
• The number of Single Market infringement cases has risen very slightly (1% more than the previous year). Nevertheless, compared to the situation 5 years ago, there has been a notable decrease (21%), namely due to a more intensive use of the pre-infringement dialogue (formerly known as the EU Pilot dialogue).
• Spain still holds the highest number of pending Single Market infringement cases (48), followed closely by Italy (44), Hungary (41), Poland (38) – now replacing Belgium in the top 5 – and Greece (35). Latvia, Lithuania and Finland have a low number of cases, with 10 or fewer each.
• The environment (36%), transport (16%), and employment (9%) are the 3 sectors with the highest number of Single Market infringement cases.
• The average case duration has decreased for the second year in a row to 44.5 months, down 9% from 49 months 2 years ago but up 28% compared to December 2019. The number of new cases remains stable at 170 (down from 173), while the number of resolved cases has dropped by 23% to 164 (down from 214), with several very old cases having a significant impact on average duration.
• The average time to comply with Court rulings in the Single Market area is not yet close to the 18-month indicative target, up from 61.3 months last year to 64 months in December 2025 and twice the average of 5 years ago. Only Malta, Poland and Slovakia have managed to meet this compliance target.

Map legend

A Member State’s performance across all indicators relating to infringements is calculated by scoring each of the 4 indicators in the Performance indicators table below as follows:
RED = -1, YELLOW = 0 and GREEN = +1.

The colours on the map represent the sum of these scores:

• green: 2 or higher = above average
• yellow: -1, 0 or 1 = average
• red: -2 or lower = below average

• 5 Member States improved on their December 2024 overall performance (Belgium, Latvia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Austria), but the situation has deteriorated for 5 others (Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden). Overall, the situation has improved slightly compared with last year. 19 Member States now have an average or above-average performance, up from 18.
• 9 Member States have consistently performed at or above the average level over the past 10 years and deserve full recognition (Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Finland).
• For the ninth consecutive year (since December 2017), Spain performs below average. Croatia is the Member State with the most above-average results since 2015.

Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are also subject to Single Market rules under the EEA Agreement. They are monitored by the EFTA Surveillance Authority.

However, there is a time lag between the adoption or repeal of a legal act in the EU and its addition to or removal from the EEA Agreement. The body of EU law applicable in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway may therefore differ from that in the EU. This should be borne in mind when comparing the Single Market Scoreboard and the EEA Scoreboard.

Total Single Market infringement cases open on 1 December 2025: 157 (down from 163 in December 2024), of which:

• incorrect transposition/application: 41, down from 42 (see figure below) = 26% of all open infringement cases (Iceland 24, Norway 13 and Liechtenstein 4)
• late transposition (directives): 19, down from 22 (Iceland 10, Liechtenstein 5 and Norway 4) = 12%
• late implementation* (regulations): 97, down from 99 (Iceland 86 and Norway 11) = 62%

The problematic sectors when looking at infringement cases due to lack of conformity with or incorrect application of Internal Market rules are still transport (17% of infringements) and persons – other (12%).

* Under Article 7 of the EEA Agreement, regulations incorporated into the Agreement “shall as such be made part of the internal legal order” of the EEA EFTA countries. In Liechtenstein, however, regulations are directly applicable and do not have to be implemented.

Changes in the number of Single Market infringement cases

• The number of Single Market infringement cases has risen slightly (by 1% over the last year), but has shown a notable decrease of 21% over the past 5 years. The trends in the number of infringement cases may be related to the use of the pre-infringement dialogue (formerly known as the EU Pilot dialogue) between the Commission and Member States over time.
• 164 of the 658 cases pending 12 months ago have now been resolved. Particular progress was made in the areas of energy (47 cases closed), the environment (27 cases) and transport (24 cases).
• 170 new infringement cases were launched in the last year (not including those for late transposition) and were still pending on 1 December 2025. 38 concerned the environment (22%), 27 employment (mainly the recognition of professional qualifications sector; 16%) and 22 financial services (13%).
• On the distribution by type of infringement, 47 of the new cases involved the incorrect application of regulations, decisions and the Treaties (28%) and 33 cases had to do with the incorrect application of directives (19%). The remaining 90 new cases concerned the incorrect transposition of directives; these now account for 53% of all cases (up from 22% last year). The sectors most affected by these transposition issues are recognition of professional qualifications (22 cases), weapons and defence-related products (19), water protection and management (12), and waste management (11).