Belgium Lags Behind In Implementing The Single Permit Directive

The EU Commission referred Belgium to the EU Court of Justice after the country failed to transpose the Single Permit Directive (Directive 2011/98/EU) into its national law, over two years after the Commission's original deadline. The Court will rule as to why Belgium failed to transpose this Directive.

The Commission's transposition deadline was set to the 25th of December, 2013, however, until that date, Belgium had not fully integrated the Directive into the Belgian legislation and informed the Commission that it had only partly done this. Subsequently, the Commission sent Belgium a notice along with an opinion with respect to its shortcomings. Eventually, the Commission referred Belgium to the Court of Justice of the European Union, suggesting that the Court impose a daily fine of €52,828.16, taking into consideration the level of gravity and the duration of Belgium's failure to transpose the Directive.