More strategic Enforcement against Non-Implementation and unlawful Gold-Plating

This measure forms part of the Commission communication A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook, adopted on 28 April 2026. The Commission defines gold-plating as a Member State introducing, when transposing or implementing EU law, a wider scope, stricter rules or obligations that go beyond the EU legal act. It says it will work with Member States on a toolkit of best practices and criteria to identify and avoid gold-plating, support them during transposition of directives, use implementation dialogues, reality checks and the European Semester to detect gold-plating, and take the risk into account when drafting proposals. On non-implementation, the Commission notes that in 2025 almost 70% of new infringement procedures stemmed from late transposition. Where a Member State notifies no transposition measure, it will as a rule issue a reasoned opinion within six months of the letter of formal notice, and it will be systematically more stringent in calculating the penalties it proposes to the Court.