As a member of the European Union, The Netherlands is obliged to comply with EU law. The European Commission can initiate an infringement procedure if it suspects EU law has been infringed. In the EU, 1,611 infringement procedures are currently being carried out. 54 procedures involve the Netherlands, placing it in the middle of the EU member states.
We will address the following questions in succession:
- Other investigations of compliance with European legislation
At the request of the European Parliament, the European Court of Auditors published an overview of the processes the Commission can use to prevent, detect and, if necessary, resolve possible infringements of EU law (2018). Its report consists mainly of a list of what the Commission can do. It does not contain an empirical assessment of how often such situations have arisen in practice. The European Court of Auditors issued a report in December 2024 on the Commission’s timely detection, follow-up, appropriate monitoring and reporting on infringement cases. It concluded that the Commission had improved its detection and correction of infringements of EU law but it still took too long to close infringement cases
As far as we are aware, other EU supreme audit institutions have not audited EU law in practice.
There are few academic studies on the Netherlands’ implementation of EU law and problems that arise from incorrect or incomplete implementation. The studies of national implementation of EU law that have been carried out in recent years have concentrated on transposition – the translation of EU Law into national law – and whether EU law was transposed on a timely basis.
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Last updated in April 2026, situation in January 2026.