We joined the European Union only two years ago, but we have been living to its rhythm for the past decade at the least. We have got used to local authorities acting under a cloak of the European Union. They keep saying the European Union requires or forbids this or that therefore we do as we are told. Lithuania carried out an array of reforms, including all kinds of restructuring, changes to regulation and new regulations, only because the European Union required so. Yet, many reforms remain unfulfilled also because of the European Union. For example, a corporate income tax reform, which gave positive results for two years, was revoked. Estonia kept it, but Lithuania for some reason not, although both countries came under a similar amount of pressure from the European Union.

 

Recently an initiative has been launched to figure out whether the implementation of EU requirements has been as smooth in Lithuania as reports show. Reportedly, Lithuania has been transposing EU acquis communitauire faster than any other member-state. Unfortunately, practical evidence shows that this fast process has not been devoid of serious mistakes.

 

For one thing, EU law is quite often used as a cover for pushing “needed” rather than required decisions. Let us take as an example draft amendments to the Law on Copyright and Related Rights which are currently under discussion in parliament. A leading document of this proposal explicitly says that the amendments in question are necessary to bring the law in line with EU directives. Yet, a closer look at some specific provisions of the law shows that this is not quite so.

 

One of the most “required” amendments that were declined by the government is taxation of equipment possessing reproduction capacity and an increase of taxes charged on various media. This means we will have to pay more for copy machines, fax machines, tape-recorders, CDs, and other electronic media. Tax proceeds will be used to compensate authors for their lost income. Copyright holders, the argument goes, sustain losses because the law allows reproduction of any legally acquired production in a single copy. Yet, the EU law does not require the member-states to compensate authors for their allegedly lost income! So this is hardly a slip-up… Rather, some interests have conditioned that a provision ostensibly required by the European Union has been tucked in for the law-makers among other proposals that will make all consumers pay more for some goods for no reason at all.

 

Debates on the Law on Public Procurement are another example. The EU law stipulates that public procurement regulations can be disregarded in some cases (mind, can!). Yet, this provision was presented as a requirement. Professedly, the EU law requires so…

 

The transposition of European regulation into the Lithuanian law is beset with other flaws. Recommendations are often presented as requirements. Provisions that should be prescribed by law are laid down in ministerial documents. In some cases when various options are possible, alternatives are not even named or seriously discussed; instead, priority is given to the strictest regulation. Information is lacking about what is required and why a given requirement is fulfilled in one way and not another.

 

I am sorry to say but Lithuania will not go far with a practice like this. We will be regulated as much as Western Europe, while bureaucracy will remain the same as in the Soviet times. Such a coctail of regulation and misadministration can put off many having to deal with the authorities. Recipes for such cocktails are often contrived in the European Union, but coctails themselves are almost always shaken in Lithuania. The European Union allows various policies and you can easily see it if you look across the member-states. Out of the old member-states it is obviously the United Kingdom and Ireland, but not France or Greece, that fare better. If we take the new member-states, Estonia has outperformed Poland.

In short, what we will obtain from the European Union – great opportunities and a push for market reforms or regulations and stagnation - depends on ourselves.