Compliance assessment

Since 2003, Milieu has been supporting the European Commission in its task to ensure that EU legislation is fully and correctly transposed and implemented in the Member States. Our studies support the work of the Commission for the preparation of infringement procedures, but also the review of the implementation of EU legislation, and future evaluations. We strive for excellence in all of our outputs, and are continuously seeking for ways to improve our compliance studies.

The method we have developed for compliance assessment and our detailed methodological tools, ensure we offer a high-quality output and maximum uniformity and comparability of analysis over all 27 Member States. We have also successfully applied a simpler version to approximation projects for candidate countries. Not only do we provide a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the transposing measures, but we often also assess implementation of EU law at national level in practice and identify practical challenges that could prevent its proper application.

We are proud of the extensive and excellent team of legal experts we have built over the years. We constantly broaden our network to ensure that we have the best lawyers in the different fields covered in our compliance assessment contracts from the environment, energy and transport, to justice and home affairs, as well as financial services or health and safety.

Milieu currently holds several Framework Contracts for the provision of compliance assessment studies, with DG ENV, DG HOME, DG JUST, DG FISMA, DG ENER/TRANSPORT and DG GROW. Examples of Milieu’s work in this field are set out below:

European Commission, DG GROW, Framework Contract ‘Consultancy services for completeness and compliance checks of national transposition measures and other legal assessment services in the field of EU Public Procurement law’

The economic significance of public procurement in Europe is considerable. Every year, over 250,000 public authorities in the EU spend around 14% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies. In many sectors, such as energy and transport, public authorities are the principal buyers. Public procurement is a matter not only of huge economic importance, but it is also an area in which there has been a massive growth of EU legislation. The public procurement package, adopted in 2014, aims to simplify the procedural regime set by the 2004 rules and make it more flexible. It contains measures to make procurement easier and administratively less burdensome and to create flexibility for public authorities enabling better procurement outcomes. Greater use of electronic tools in public procurement is also encouraged

The Framework Contract covers the assessment of national provisions which Member States have introduced by means of legal, administrative or regulatory measures in order to transpose Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts, Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, Directive 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors and Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement.

Compliance Assessment services in the policy areas under the responsibility of DG Justice and Consumers and Legal Compliance Assessment and Legal Consultancy Services in the area of Migration and Home Affairs for DG Home

Under these two large compliance assessment framework contracts for DG Justice and DG Home, Milieu has checked the completeness and conformity of the transposition by Member States of a number of Directives. These include various directives and regulations in the field of criminal justice, citizenship, free movement and legal migration, judicial cooperation:

  • For DG Justice, the Victim’s Rights Directive, the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive and the Fund Transfer Regulation, Factual analysis of Member States Investors’ Schemes granting citizenship or residence to third-country nationals investing in the said Member State, Directive 2014/57/EU on criminal sanctions for market abuse.
  • For DG Home, the Council Framework Decision 2006/960/JHA on simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities of the Member States (’The Swedish Initiative’), Directives 2014/36/EU (Seasonal Workers Directive) and 2014/66/EU (ICT Directive), Directive (EU) 2016/801 (“Students and Researchers Directive”), Directive 2014/42/EU (Confiscation Directive), Directive (EU) 2011/98/EU (“Single Permit Directive”) and Directive (EU) 681/2016 (“Passengers name record Directive”).

For some of these projects, Milieu’s tasks went beyond a simple check of the legal transposition and also covered a review of practical implementation, involving further desk-research and interviews with authorities and other stakeholders.

Legal, economic and technical assistance in the fields of Energy and Mobility and Transport- framework contract, Lot 4- Legal assistance in the field of mobility and transport (DG MOVE)

Road safety goes hand in hand with people’s safety. Under the impetus of ambitious European policies and through the implementation of specific EU legislative measures, European roads are today the safest in the world. The number of road deaths has fallen considerably in the last twenty years. Among those EU legislative measures to enhance road safety and to contribute to the target of halving road deaths by 50% by 2020, the EU approved the ‘Roadworthiness Package’ in 2014.  It consists of three Directives, namely: Directive 2014/45/EC on periodic roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers; Directive 2014/46/EC amending Council Directive 1999/37/EC on the registration documents for vehicles; Directive 2014/47/EC on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Union. Under this Framework Contract, Milieu is carrying out a compliance assessment of the transposition of these directives.