Report a breach of EU law by an EU country Page contentsPage contents If your legal rights under EU law are affected, you must be granted access to rapid and effective redress in the EU country involved. You can therefore bring the matter to the relevant national authorities and try to resolve it. They are the first bodies responsible for ensuring that EU law is applied correctly in individual cases.You can also report a breach of EU law by a national authority by lodging a complaint with the Commission. Please keep in mind that the Commission’s role is to make sure that EU law is followed properly in general by EU countries, not to resolve your individual situation. Who Does What? The authorities in every EU country play a key role in ensuring that EU law is implemented timely and correctly. This is essential for people and businesses to be protected by and benefit from commonly agreed rules. The national authorities, including national courts, are the first line of protection for your legal rights under EU law.The Commission makes sure that EU countries comply with their obligations under EU law. If they fail to properly implement EU laws, the Commission can launch a formal infringement procedure against them. The objective is to align national laws and practices with EU law. Infringement procedures and the role of complaintsComplaints are a valuable source of information for the Commission to detect potential breaches of EU law by EU countries. They help us ensure that EU law is being applied properly across the board. When it comes to dealing with complaints, the Commission is largely free to decide if and when to launch an infringement procedure.The main purpose of the infringement procedure is to ensure that EU countries correctly apply EU law in general. The purpose is not to remedy individual problems.You will never be granted direct, personal redress or compensation simply as a result of an infringement procedure. For that, you must contact the relevant national authorities, including the courts.However, the information that you share in your complaint might help us rectify a general situation where EU law is applied incorrectly, benefiting many people and businesses in the country concerned.What is EU law?EU law is the body of rules decided at EU level and applicable in all EU member countries. It includes international agreements, EU treaties, regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.Not every aspect of your life is governed by EU law. Some areas are exclusively under the remit of national governments, such as urban planning and most aspects of criminal and civil law.Not sure if EU law applies to your situation?Breach of EU lawThis can take the form of any of the following cases that goes against EU law:a national law, regulation or administrative measurethe absence of a law, regulation or administrative measurea practice by a national authority of an EU country.For example, if EU law stipulates that diesel cars must not emit more than 1 gram of carbon monoxide per kilometre, this law would be considered to be breached if:an EU country has a law in place that only enforces a higher limitan EU country does not have a law in place to enforce any limitan EU country does have a law in place to enforce this limit but its authorities are not applying it in practice. What the Commission cannot do? The Commission does not have the power to:act on the following complaints:against acts by private bodies or individuals that do not involve national authorities concerning matters that do not fall under EU law (cross-reference to section What is EU law)against countries that are not EU membersagainst other international organisations (e.g. NATO, UN, Council of Europe)offer you individual redress or compensation for damages you have incurredtake over a decision-making role in place of national authorities or review decisions they have made in individual cases. Handling complaints Enforcing EU law is one of the Commission’s main tasks. We do this by focusing our efforts on preventing breaches of EU law from happening in the first place and by acting firmly and quickly when serious breaches occur.The same approach applies to complaints handling. We do not follow up on every complaint but rather focus on those with the biggest impact on the interests of people and businesses generally. Strategic approach to enforcementThe best way to enforce EU law is to prevent breaches from happening in the first place. Day-to-day cooperation between the Commission and its member countries is key to ensuring early compliance.But ultimately, infringement procedures, including the possibility to refer an EU country to the Court of Justice of the European Union, are sometimes needed to address serious breaches of EU law.The Commission uses infringement procedures to address systemic failures of compliance with EU law and breaches with the highest impact on the everyday lives of people and businesses.These infringement proceedings include cases for:failure to transpose a directive into national law in time or correctlyfailure to comply with a judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Unionfailure to provide a redress procedure for breaches of EU law.See information about Commission decisions on infringements.Our strategic approach to enforcement is set out in the 2016 policy paper EU law: Better results through better application and further explained in a paper on Enforcing EU law for a Europe that delivers. This strategy concerns the handling of both complaints and infringement procedures.Complaints that will not be pursued The Commission will not investigate complaints if the matter is already being addressed, in one way or another by the national authorities responsible or by the Commission itself, or if the complainant can bring it directly to the relevant national bodies, including the courts.This applies to:complaints about individual situations where EU law is not applied correctly, which do not point to a widespread systemic problem. In such cases, if there is effective legal protection available, the Commission will direct complainants to the national authoritiesinstances where a national court has raised the same issue with the Court of Justice of the European Union in a preliminary ruling proceedingcomplaints raising EU countries’ shortcomings in transposing a directive into national law, where the Commission is already looking into itcomplaints on issues in which the Commission has already taken a position in a legislative proposal.Steps in the process The steps for handling complaints and the rules for dealing with complainants are set out in the annex to the policy paper EU law: Better results through better application.This is an outline of the process used by the Commission to deal with complaints:Receipt & screening: After receiving your complaint, the Commission will check whether it fulfils the criteria to be handled as a complaint. If we cannot consider your submission as a complaint, we will explain why in a reply (e.g the Commission is not competent to follow-up on the matter, your complaint is rather a request for information etc.). However, if your submission is insulting or senseless and does not require a substantive response, the Commission reserves the right to not reply.Registration and acknowledgement of receipt: If your submission alleges a breach of EU law by a national authority of an EU country, you will receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your complaint, with a registration number. When acknowledging receipt, we will explain how we assess complaints and how we will deal with personal data. Assessment: We will examine your complaint mostly based on the information that you provide. It is therefore essential that you concisely describe all the facts using the complaint form. The quality of the information that you provide directly impacts our assessment and the possible follow-up to your complaint. We will not ask for more information unless your complaint shows sufficient signs of a serious breach of EU law. Based on our enforcement strategy, we will decide if the complaint should be further investigated, or if it can be closed. Decision: After assessing the complaint, we may either decide to start an infringement procedure against the EU country concerned or close the complaint definitively. In some cases, where we identify a possible breach of EU law, we may decide to engage in an informal dialogue with the Member State concerned, known as EU Pilot, instead of immediately opening an infringement procedure. You will be informed accordingly.We will do our best to reach a decision within 1 year from registration of your complaint. You will be informed if we conclude that no further action will be taken on your complaint. We will explain why we intend to close the complaint and you will have 4 weeks to submit further comments if you wish. If you do not reply or your reply does not bring new elements that would make the Commission reconsider its position, we will confirm the closure of the file. It is not possible to appeal the Commission’s decision to close a complaint.We remind you that whatever decision we take, the Commission’s role is to make sure that EU law is followed properly by EU countries, not to resolve your individual situation. To obtain personal redress or compensation you must contact the relevant national authorities. Do you think that the Commission has not dealt with your complaint properly?If you think the Commission has not handled your complaint properly you can turn to the European Ombudsman. This applies to aspects such as failing to deal with the complaint in a timely manner or failing to keep you informed of the different stages in processing it.However, when it comes to the decision itself, the Ombudsman can get in touch only to ensure that the Commission has explained its position properly. It can only ask to review the decision if there is evidence of a manifest error.What percentage of complaints does the Commission investigate?The Commission does not further investigate most complaints, for 3 major reasons:the Commission has no power to act on themno breach of EU law is identifiedthe identified breach is better dealt with at national level.For example, in 2022 the Commission pursued less than 5% of complaints further (by launching investigations).However, sometimes the Commission is able to successfully close major infringement cases based on or supported by information given in complaints, because EU countries reached compliance.The Commission reports on complaints handling in its Annual Report on monitoring the application of EU law. Submit a Complaint Go through our checklist to make sure that the European Commission can investigate your complaint and fill in the complaint form.Submit a complaint Multiple complaints The Commission sometimes receives a large number of complaints on the same topic, against the same EU country (‘multiple complaints’).In these cases, the Commission may decide to communicate with the complainants as a group, by publishing information on this website. Communicating like this allows the Commission services to respond swiftly and inform those concerned. It also gives the opportunity to address a potentially wider public interest around the issue raised by the complainants.Find more information about notices on multiple complaints which are still under assessment or have been recently closed. Useful links How to make a complaint at national level.Your rights under the EU Charter of fundamental rights – when the Charter applies, what to do if your rights are breached and where to turn for help.You also have the right to submit a petition to the European Parliament about the application of EU law. Check first if your issue has already been raised with the Parliament. If it has, you can support an existing petition. If the petition is admissible, the Parliament may ask the Commission to conduct an investigation. The Commission will assess the request and reply to the Parliament.
The authorities in every EU country play a key role in ensuring that EU law is implemented timely and correctly. This is essential for people and businesses to be protected by and benefit from commonly agreed rules. The national authorities, including national courts, are the first line of protection for your legal rights under EU law.The Commission makes sure that EU countries comply with their obligations under EU law. If they fail to properly implement EU laws, the Commission can launch a formal infringement procedure against them. The objective is to align national laws and practices with EU law.
