Replication Data for: Comparing transposition in the 27 member states of the EU: The impact of discretion and legal fit

In this project we focused on the transposition of EU directives including the new member states. The results of this project were published as Bernard Steunenberg and Dimiter Toshkov (2009) Comparing transposition in 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit, Journal of European Public Policy 16(7): 951-70.). Here our main findings based on the abstract of this article: Transposition performance differs significantly across countries and policy sectors in the EU. In this article we analyse the transposition efforts of all 27 member states with regard to four EC directives expected to create considerable difficulties for compliance at the national level. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we find that discretion and legal fit are significant factors in explaining transposition. Furthermore, we discover that the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe are not doing any worse than the rest of the EU in terms of transposition timeliness. Surprisingly, government effectiveness has a negative relationship with compliance, while periods of absence of functioning government do not increase transposition time. Our findings emphasize the importance of legal-administrative factors for compliance with EU law.

本研究聚焦于涵盖欧盟新成员国在内的欧盟指令转化（transposition）工作。本项目的研究成果已发表为Bernard Steunenberg与Dimiter Toshkov（2009）的《Comparing transposition in 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit》一文，刊载于《Journal of European Public Policy》第16卷第7期，页码为951-70。以下为本研究基于该论文摘要提炼的核心发现：欧盟各成员国及各政策领域的指令转化绩效存在显著差异。本文针对四项预计会给国内合规带来较大难度的欧盟指令，分析了全部27个成员国的转化工作。通过Cox比例风险回归（Cox proportional hazards regression）分析，本研究发现，自由裁量权与法律适配性是解释指令转化情况的显著影响因素。此外，研究还发现，中东欧新成员国在指令转化的及时性方面，表现并不逊色于欧盟其他成员国。令人意外的是，政府效能与合规性呈负相关关系，而无有效政府执政的时段并不会延长指令转化周期。本研究结果凸显了法律-行政因素对欧盟法律合规的重要性。