Annex 14
Memorandum from the Head of the Legislation
Support Unit, Government of Gibraltar, to the Chief Minister,
Gibraltar, 9 July 2002
RE: UPDATE
ON TRANSPOSITION
OF DIRECTIVES
I am writing to update you as requested, to
set out the current position in relation to our transposition
of EU directives.
It is important to place the extent of our recent
effort into proper context. Our files reveal that a few weeks
following the 1996 general election we surveyed our compliance
record and concluded that, in its 24 years of membership of the
EU, Gibraltar had only transposed 81 directives.
You will be pleased to learn that, as at 9 July
2002 we have transposed 323.
The large historical backlog that prevailed
prior to 1996 has been completely eliminated. We now transpose
most directives as and when they come into effect. We have no
major finance or environmental directive left untransposed—or
about to be transposed very shortly—and we have cleared
our decks completely of company law directives.
My draftsmen have a total of 17 directives overdue
for transposition. This is one of the lowest figures on record.
We expect to clear these by September this year.
We give the highest priority to directives which
are the subject of infractions or threatened infractions. It is
certainly true that we are, on rare occasions, the subject of
Gibraltar-specific infractions but far more common are infractions
against the UK that take in Gibraltar. This is because our legislation
is very similar to the UK's in style and content. Therefore if
infraction proceedings are taken against the UK based on an alleged
deficiency in its legislation that deficiency will also usually
affect our legislation.
In addition to the 17 directives in the process
of being actioned by this Unit, a total of 38 have been processed
by us and are with Whitehall awaiting comment. A further 35 are
with Gibraltar ministers for a policy steer.
Legislation Support Unit
9 July 2002
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