The directive is one of the classic types of legal act used within EU cooperation.
Article 249 EC states the following with regard to directives: ‘A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.’
The directives thus do not have direct application as national law in the Member States, but the Member States must transpose the directive in national law by a deadline laid down in the directive. When a Member State has implemented the directive in national law, it shall notify the Commission of this.
As a starting point, directives set an objective which is to be achieved, but it is left to the Member States to determine the form and methods to be used for implementation of the directive. In practice there is great variation in the scope the Member States have for determining the form and methods to be used for implementation. Some directives lay down only very general frameworks within a specific policy area or do not go beyond laying down minimum rules in an area, on the basis of which the Member States can then set more stringent requirements. Other directives may contain very detailed provisions, which in practice do not allow the Member States any scope in terms of national implementation of the directive.
If a Member State fails to implement a directive on time, citizens may nevertheless invoke the provisions of the directive once the date for implementation has passed. However, this requires the provisions to be precise and implicit. This is called the principle of direct effect of the directive, which is laid down via the case-law of the Court of Justice.|
Examples of directives are Directive 2000/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 January 2001 on summer-time arrangements (see question 70) or Directive 2001/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products. Among other things, the latter directive contains rules to the effect that tobacco products must be labelled with warnings such as ‘Smoking kills/Smoking can kill’, or ‘Smoking seriously harms you and others around you’. |
Sidst opdateret: 22-07-2008 - ANSJ