| The European Commission is pursuing 16 Member States including the UK and Ireland for failure to implement the Market Abuse Directive on time. The deadline for transposition of the directive was 12 October 2004.
In a press statement, the EU's Internal Market and Services Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, was pleased with the progress made on creating a more open, integrated and competitive European financial market. However, McCreevy said that the failure to implement directives agreed by Member States and the EU Parliament on time rendered them "absolutely useless".
The Commission's action at this stage will take the form of requests (called "reasoned opinions") sent to the offending Member States asking for a reply (usually within two months) for their failure to implement the Directive. If a satisfactory response is not received on time, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.
This stern move by the Commission follows hard on the heals of a league table published in July covering all of the legislation adopted under the "Lamfalussy process". It outlined serious shortfalls by Member States on implementing its range of Securities Directives. Commissioner McCreevy responded to the results as "lamentable" and said the Commission would "continue to monitor the situation like hawks". | 
