The Diplomat
53.6% of the laws approved by the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) during the IX legislature of the European Parliament had their origin in the European institutions, according to a detailed analysis carried out by the European Parliament Office in Spain.
Specifically, of the 246 laws approved in Spain during the five years of the European Parliament’s term (2019-2024), 51 corresponded to the application of European regulations or the transposition of European directives into the Spanish legal system and another 81 contained references to recommendations, programs or community initiatives.
Despite certain moments of lower legislative activity at a national level, such as the one that followed the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 or the dissolution of the Cortes before the electoral call in 2023, the figure has remained significantly stable in these five years , according to the aforementioned analysis.
Specifically, the total balance during the IX legislature of the European Parliament shows that, each year, the decisions adopted in the EU have a direct influence on practically 50% of the regulations that are approved in Spain. Only in 2023, due to the dissolution of the Cortes Generales due to the electoral call and the consequent decrease in legislative activity in Spain, the annual percentage reached an unusual 72%.
Likewise, during this first half of 2024, and after the start of the 15th Spanish legislature, two legislative initiatives have been approved so far, which gives a percentage so far this year of 50% of laws with European rule, since one of them includes the transposition of a European Directive that regulates family conciliation and the professional life of parents and caregivers in the European Union.
Despite all this, according to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spain is still pending transposition of 55 European directives, most of them with transposition deadlines in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Two of them are related to greenhouse gases, had to have been transposed before December 31, 2023, and three others had a deadline of March, April and May 2024.
246 laws
During this five-year period, the Congress and the Senate have approved a total of 246 laws. Of them, 132 regulations regulate aspects that respect the line set by the institutions of the European Union, that is, they derive from community directives or regulations or are framed in the regulatory umbrella established by the European institutions.
Of these 132 regulations of European origin, 51 respond to the mandate of application of community regulations or to the transposition into the internal legal system of Spain of directives approved by the European Parliament and the Council.
These include the Directives on waste and impact of plastics, the Directive on tax cooperation in the EU, the Audiovisual Communication Services Directive, which adapts to the new reality of the audiovisual market; the Directive establishing a single railway area for the EU; the Regulation that regulates the new European Union Agency for Criminal Judicial Cooperation (Eurojust); or the Regulation that includes the rules that Member States must apply when designing their strategic plans to adapt to the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The other 81 laws contain references to European recommendations or decisions, that is, they respect the line set by the institutions of the European Union, although they do not respond directly to a transposition mandate.
