Journal of European Public Policy 17:4 June 2010: 468 –486

The implementation of EU social

policy: the ‘Southern Problem’
revisited
Miriam Hartlapp and Simone Leiber

ABSTRACT This article analyses the implementation of EU social policy in the

Southern European member states. When studied by implementation research, Por-
tugal, Greece, Italy and Spain are often treated as a homogeneous group, and some
authors speak of a particular ‘Southern Problem’ while others contest this. In this
article, we will take issue with central explanatory frameworks of this literature –
the existence of a high level of policy misfit, inefficient administrative and political
systems, and weak non-state actors and civil societies in Southern Europe. We
analyse the effects of these factors on the timeliness and correctness of implemen-
tation in the area of social policy. In a first step, we show that images of a hom-
ogenous ‘Southern laggard group’ are indeed inappropriate. In a second step, we
present a new explanation of why the Southern countries are not as uniform as
often supposed: they belong to different ‘worlds of compliance’.
KEY WORDS Compliance; enforcement; implementation; social partners; social
policy; Southern Europe.

1. INTRODUCTION
The growing body of literature on the impact of European Union (EU) Direc-
tives on member states identifies a range of factors that influence the timeliness
and correctness of implementation. However, the case studies are often limited
to specific geographical areas with the Southern member states still being a
neglected area compared to the Western or Northern European member
states. Early research on implementation did not consider Portugal and Spain
at all – because of their later accession (Siedentopf and Ziller 1988) – and
even in more recent research, empirical evidence from Portugal and Greece is
still very rare – but see Featherstone and Kazamias (2001). Nevertheless,
research interest in the Europeanization of Southern Europe has increased in
some policy fields, most notably in environmental (e.g., Koutalakis 2004)
and regional policy (e.g., Magone 2000). When it comes to social policy, we
find that scholarly attention is primarily directed towards possible EU influences
on the transformation of the welfare state (e.g., Guillén 2007) or Europeaniza-
tion through the Open Method of Co-ordination (e.g., Ferrera and Sacchi

Journal of European Public Policy

ISSN 1350-1763 print; 1466-4429 online # 2010 Taylor & Francis
http://www.informaworld.com/journals
DOI: 10.1080/13501761003673443
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 469
2005). There is a lack of comprehensive studies on the transposition and
application of European social policy directives in the Southern member
states – but see Linos (2007).
Early implementation studies underlined the relative homogeneity of the
Southern European countries by stressing their weak implementation records
(Börzel 2003; La Spina and Sciortino 1993; Pridham and Cini 1994). From
a more general perspective, these countries share many common features,
such as the experience of authoritarianism, economic backwardness, relatively
important agricultural sectors, a north – south divide, and a clerical –anticlerical
cleavage (Lijphart et al. 1988: 7–8), and they also have similar public policy
patterns (Castles and Obinger 2008). On these grounds, one might expect
the Southern European countries to perform similarly in terms of the timely
and correct implementation of EU policies. Why, then, has the ‘Southern
Problem’ been contested? And what is more, why is it expedient to revisit
the topic?
When La Spina and Sciortino (1993: 219 –22; cf. also Putnam et al. 1993)
first spoke of a ‘“disease” called the “Mediterranean Syndrome”’, they mainly
stressed a low administrative capacity for implementation, linking non-
compliance with particular Southern institutional and cultural deficiencies.
The ‘Southern Problem’ approach (Pridham and Cini 1994) focuses on more
general explanatory factors such as the distribution of political competencies,
mechanisms of political co-ordination, administrative styles and resources,
and the level of socio-economic development. In contrast to La Spina and
Sciortino’s (1993) work, these explanatory variables are regarded as applicable
to all member states. Yet, a clear north –south divide with substantial implemen-
tation problems in the latter group is expected since the factors impeding
implementation (e.g., a weak administration) are considered particularly pro-
nounced in the South. Contrary to Pridham’s and Cini’s work, Börzel (2003:
4) argues somewhat ambiguously that ‘there is (not) a “Southern Problem”’
since a combination of national and EU-related explanations take effect:
above all, misfit and social mobilization from below combined with EU pressure
from above – ‘Push-and-Pull Model’; cf. Börzel (2003: 35– 55) and Börzel and
Dudziak (2008). To sum up, there is consensus that the region has a particularly
weak implementation record, but a still unsettled question is whether typical
Southern factors (‘Mediterranean Syndrome’), typical national factors (‘Southern
Problem’) or a mix of EU level and national factors (‘(Not) a Southern Problem’)
are best suited to explain EU implementation deficits in these countries. What is
more, clarification of existing uncertainties is hampered by the use of either
quantitative data based on official EU statistics that face serious general pro-
blems (Hartlapp and Falkner 2009), or qualitative evidence from selected
countries, primarily from a single sector (environmental policy), rendering it
difficult to come to grips with Southern specificity or national specificity.
In this article, we provide comprehensive new qualitative empirical findings
that question whether there is a uniform implementation problem in Southern
Europe. In addition, we challenge the ‘(No) Southern Problem’ perspective by
470 Journal of European Public Policy
presenting a new explanation of why the Southern countries are not as uniform
as often supposed. Classified according to a typology of procedural implemen-
tation patterns, the four countries actually belong to different ‘worlds of com-
pliance’ where theoretically relevant explanatory factors play out differently
(Falkner et al. 2005). Thus, we claim that our three ‘worlds of compliance’
approach is useful for solving the ‘old puzzle’ of Southern Europe’s implemen-
tation record, which is not adequately explained by existing research.
This article is structured as follows: We first explain our choice of data,
method and case selection (Section 2). Then we present three theoretical
strands considered central in the literature on EU implementation in Southern
Europe (Section 3). Section 4 contrasts these theoretical expectations with our
new theoretical perspective on diverging implementation patterns across the
Southern countries. In Section 5, we provide empirical evidence that questions
the validity of the three classical approaches to non-compliance and shows the
variation of implementation patterns and outcomes in Southern Europe.
Finally, we sum up the theoretical and empirical insights in Section 6.

2. DATA, METHOD AND CASE SELECTION

In the following sections, we will present findings from a collaborative research
project in which 90 qualitative case studies provided the basis for an analysis of
the transposition, application and enforcement of EU social policy directives in
all EU-15 member states. This article identifies the specific implications for
Southern Europe and links the results to the research debate on a supposed
‘Southern Problem’ in EU policy. Implementation is understood as the
process of first, adopting international regulations at a national level (i.e., trans-
position), and second, applying these rules at ground level. When a member
state successfully implements EU standards, it is considered to be in compliance.
Enforcement can take place throughout the entire process at the national level
(in the area studied typically carried out by labour inspectorates) or at the
supranational level (by the EU Commission and the European Court of
Justice (ECJ).
We chose to examine the six most important labour law directives of the 1990s,
which were adopted early enough on to allow us to analyse their implementation
by the turn of the century, and which actually altered existing national regulations.
The six directives selected concern the following issues: written information on
contractual employment conditions (91/533/EEC); the protection of pregnant
and breastfeeding workers (92/85/EEC); regulation of working time (93/104/
EC); protection of young workers (94/33/EC); parental leave (96/34/EC);
and non-discrimination of part-time workers (97/81/EC).
In this article, we will focus on Portugal (P), Spain (E), Italy (I) and Greece
(GR). The four Southern European countries present ‘a particularly inviting set
of cases for comparative analysis’ (Lijphart et al. 1988: 7). As we will show,
despite their considerable similarity with respect to a number of institutional
features considered relevant for implementation performance by different
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 471
strands of the theoretical literature (see Section 3 below), the actual implemen-
tation performance of the four countries in the social policy field varies substan-
tially, thereby challenging the claims of homogeneity made in the literature.
The comparison of Southern countries will be complemented by a – less
detailed – analysis of the other 11 EU member states, providing answers to
the question of whether there is something specific to the Southern countries’
implementation performance.
Beyond analysing primary documents and secondary literature, about 180
interviews were conducted with experts from the public administration, interest
groups and labour inspection bodies in all EU-15 member states.

3. WHY EXPECT AN IMPLEMENTATION PROBLEM

IN SOUTHERN EUROPE?
In the following, we will discuss three strands of reasoning that would lead us to
predict rather poor performance for the South when it comes to the implemen-
tation of EU policies and adapt them to the particularities of the social policy
field. They cover the explanatory variables that are at the core of the various
claims made in the ‘Southern Problem’ debate.

3.1. Arguments based on the misfit approach

Many scholars have pointed to the degree of fit or misfit between EU rules and
existing national institutional and regulatory traditions as central factors in the
determination of implementation performance – see Falkner et al. (2005: 14–
17) for an overview. From this perspective, EU policies are met by deeply rooted
institutional and regulatory structures at the national level. If both fit together,
implementation should be a smooth and unproblematic process. If EU policies
do not match existing traditions, however, implementation can be expected to
be highly contested, which would lead to considerable delays and entail a high
risk of total failure. Meanwhile, the misfit hypothesis has been refined by several
authors. According to the literature, additional ‘mediating factors’ (e.g., Risse
et al. 2001) must be taken into account in order to explain national adaptations
to EU incentives – such as the number of veto points or veto players, the
decision-making culture, and processes of elite learning and social mobilization.
However, even in this literature, misfit is often regarded as a ‘necessary
condition’ (Börzel and Risse 2000: 5) for domestic change (but see Knill and
Lehmkuhl 2002), and higher misfit is still considered to result in more severe
implementation problems (Börzel and Dudziak 2008: 16– 17).
One characteristic that the Southern member states are believed to share is
their comparatively lower level of social protection. The Southern European
welfare states have been characterized as rudimentary (Leibfried 1993) and
inadequate (e.g., Ferrera 2005: 4– 6; but see Guillén and Matsaganis 2000:
120). In addition, Majone (1993: 160, 166) points to the concern that EU
social policy will lead the South to lose its competitive cost advantage vis-à-vis
472 Journal of European Public Policy
Northern countries, while the superior infrastructure and more highly skilled
workforce of the Northern countries will continue to attract investment.
Consequently, the Southern member states should be interested in maintaining
the status quo. The assumption of a generally low regulatory level in Southern
Europe has been challenged with respect to specific indicators, e.g., the presence
of a large and often sheltered public sector (Ioakimidis 2001: 78). However, on an
aggregate level, and when linked to arguments like Majone’s regarding the
comparatively low production costs found in the South, the existence of lower
standards in the Southern countries might still be considered a source of
competitive advantage. According to this logic and based on the misfit argument,
serious obstacles to the correct and timely implementation of higher EU standards
are to be expected.

3.2. Arguments based on weak administrative and inefficient political

systems
Early studies on the implementation of EU directives argued that many trans-
position problems were caused by problems of administrative co-ordination or
by long-drawn-out legislative procedures (e.g., Van den Bossche 1996: 380–2) –
a claim that is also central to the ‘Southern Problem’ argument (La Spina
and Sciortino 1993). Sotiropoulos (2004: 405) argues, for example, that the
bureaucracies of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece share specific characteristics:
‘extended politicisation of the top administrative ranks; enduring patronage
patterns in recruitment . . .; uneven distribution of human resources; formalism
and legalism’ – cf. also Linos (2007: 560–1). More recently, Börzel and
Dudziak (2008) pointed to the poor co-ordination within the Greek and
Italian administrations.
Looking beyond transposition to application, the ‘[c]hronic weakness of
control and enforcement bodies, across all the Mediterranean countries . . .
seriously under-financed, ill-equipped professionally, and unevenly distributed
across the country’ (La Spina and Sciortino 1993: 225; similarly Pridham and
Cini 1994: 268) can be expected to impede correct implementation. At the
same time, the generally large gap between legislation and practice (Putnam
et al. 1993: 115) in these countries would require even more efficient supervi-
sion and control than in the other member states if a similar level of compliance
with EU labour law standards is to be guaranteed.
In political processes, a reactive policy style (La Spina and Sciortino 1993: 227)
and the party dominance (Ioakimidis 2001: 79) typical of Southern countries
are regarded as obstacles to timely and correct implementation. While most
of these assessments are based on in-depth studies of environmental policies,
the general nature of political structures and processes implies similar effects
in other policy fields.
More generally, member state capacities continue to be an (if not the most)
important explanatory factor in many implementation studies. A first variant of
the argument is based on the unequal capacity of domestic political systems to
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 473
carry through reforms, depending, for example, on the number of veto players
(e.g., Borghetto et al. 2006: 30; Linos 2007: 557, 567). A second set of assump-
tions underlines that bureaucracies systematically differ in their ability and staff
motivation to undertake the necessary work, and that the duration and quality
of implementation very much depends on co-ordination between different
entities within the bureaucracy (Borghetto et al. 2006: 14; Linos 2007: 553).
However, the empirical evidence presented on both hypotheses is ambiguous.
This is not least due to incoherent operationalization that lacks, among other
things, a distinction between implementation problems caused by insufficient
technical expertise and resources and the fragmented and ineffective co-ordination
of different actors in the administrative sphere.

3.3. Arguments based on the link between implementation and social

interest groups
The role of societal or non-state actors in implementation has been highlighted,
especially in literature related to EU environmental policy. They are seen as a
‘pull factor’ that exerts pressure against ineffective implementation and
toward the fulfilment of EU requirements (e.g., Börzel 2003: 36). Stressing
the general relevance of social mobilization, Koutalakis (2004) points to the
overall limited, but still differential, capacity to engage in environmental
protection in Southern Europe due to different forms of mobilization
It might be argued that the situation is different in the field of social policy,
where we encounter clearly assigned benefits and either concentrated or even
diffuse costs (in environmental policy it is generally the other way around).
This implies that here the social mobilization of benefiting groups might be
achieved much more easily. Union organizations in Southern Europe are
weaker in terms of resources and membership than those in many Northern
countries, but they are traditionally well-established organizations that do not
have to start mobilizing from scratch. In this sense, even a lower investment
in mobilization might enable them to exert pressure in the direction of
implementation.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of the so-called ‘bottom-up approach’ in
traditional implementation theory (e.g., Lipsky 1978), it is intense involvement
of the relevant actors in the decision-making process that leads to better
implementation and application of the rules ‘on the ground’. Thus, implemen-
tation problems are to be expected in member states – e.g., presumably those of
Southern Europe – where social interest groups are either too weak to provide
additional knowledge to the government and/or are not involved in the
decision-making process due to the absence of a consensual, corporatist
decision-making tradition.
Finally, a third sub-strand of literature that can be used as a source of expec-
tations about the role of social interest groups in policy implementation refers
to veto-player theory (Tsebelis 2002). Social partners – even in countries
with very strong corporatist traditions – do not have formal veto powers in
474 Journal of European Public Policy
the transposition process. However, they can be considered powerful players
able to exert influence in political decision-making processes. Potential blocking
power may, however, be overcome by ‘a decisional tradition capable of
surmounting formal and factual veto points by way of consensual tripartite
decision-making’ (Héritier 2001: 44). According to this reasoning, the lack of
such a consensual tradition in Southern Europe makes flawed or delayed trans-
position more likely.

4. THE TYPOLOGY OF ‘WORLDS OF COMPLIANCE’

In contrast to claims that implementation deficits in the studied member states
can be explained by typical Southern factors or by general factors with similar
expression in the South, the approach presented in this section is able to
account for divergent implementation patterns in Southern Europe. In terms
of predicting outcomes, the theoretical claims of this approach are less far-
reaching than those of the three strands of literature presented.1 Nevertheless,
the typology redirects previous theoretical reasoning to more complex expla-
nations and to the fact that the parsimonious explanations of prominent litera-
ture strands are only ‘sometimes true’ (Falkner et al. 2007), i.e., in the context of
a particular cultural setting. This section briefly outlines the main features of the
three ‘worlds of compliance’.
The typology of ‘worlds of compliance’ is the overall result of the collabora-
tive research project introduced in Section 2 – for details see Falkner et al.
(2005: ch. 14 –15). In this context, a systematic testing of a broad range of
explanatory factors from extant political science approaches was carried out in
90 qualitative case studies. During the research process we came across empirical
cases that suggested additional useful hypotheses. Therefore, elements were
added to the approach inductively (following the logic of ‘grounded theory’,
cf. Glaser and Strauss 1967). As a major reference point for explaining national
implementation performance, a country-typical national culture of digesting
adaptation requirements was identified.2 From the empirical field of EU social
policy, a typology of three ‘worlds of compliance’ (i.e., clusters of countries)
was constructed, where each ‘world’ depicted a typical pattern of response to
EU adaptation requirements: ‘a world of law observance’; ‘a world of domestic
politics’; and ‘a world of neglect’. It is important to stress that these three types
do not refer to implementation outcomes, rather to typical modes and pro-
cedures of dealing with implementation responsibilities in which different sets
of independent variables affect implementation. We distinguished between
the administrative and the political phases of the transposition process in an
ideal-typical fashion and found that a characteristic pattern of action is domi-
nant in each world.
In the ‘world of law observance’ supported by a national ‘compliance culture’
in the sense of an issue-specific ‘shared interpretative scheme’ (Douglas 2001:
3149), compliance with EU law is a very highly valued goal – both in the
administrative and parliamentary spheres – typically overriding domestic
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 475
obstacles to implementation even in cases of conflicting national interest. In the
‘world of domestic politics’ this is true only for the administrative system. When
it comes to the political sphere, a smooth transposition process can be expected
as long as the requirements are not in conflict with the government and/or
major interest groups’ national priorities. In the ‘world of neglect’, in contrast,
not even the administration acts in a dutiful manner. Compliance with EU law
is not a goal per se, which means that even without any major national obstacles
or conflicts, the political transposition is not even initiated when it should be. As
we will show, the four countries studied in this article belong to different worlds
of compliance.
How are implementation patterns and implementation outcomes linked?
Beyond a mere description of implementation patterns, the typology highlights
the fact that different explanatory factors may be decisive for the success of
implementation in each country cluster. The national compliance culture is
central to the ‘world of law observance’. In the ‘world of neglect’, administrative
factors, such as inefficiency and co-ordination problems, overload and the
general unwillingness of administrative actors to acknowledge reform require-
ments imposed by EU law play a crucial role. Specific conflicts of (civil
societies’) interests are less instructive for understanding implementation
processes. After long inertia, transposition is often initiated by an intervention
of the EU Commission and may then proceed rather swiftly and uncontested by
national interests. In the ‘world of domestic politics’, it is most useful to focus
on veto-players, party political preferences, changes of government and interest
group pressure. Contrary to existing expectations expressed in the literature, the
worlds approach presents a new argument for why we do not observe hom-
ogenous implementation patterns and outcomes throughout the Southern
European member states. This will be illustrated empirically in the next section.

5. FINDINGS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EU SOCIAL

POLICY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE
In the following, we will report on the success or failure of the implementation
of six directives in four member states; hence on 24 case studies.

5.1. Adaptation requirements

As a starting point for testing the misfit hypothesis, we made a detailed
comparative assessment of the fit between prior national legislation and the stan-
dards of the six EU directives studied. Policy misfit 3 can refer to a difference of
grade or to a matter of principle. Hence, Europeanization can be of a quantitat-
ive nature (strengthening or weakening an existing policy) or a qualitative nature
(the creation of completely new national institutions or the replacement of exist-
ing ones). In some cases, the policy misfit of a particular directive may appear
more important on paper (legal misfit) than in practice (practical significance),
for example, where the content is already guaranteed by collective agreements.
476 Journal of European Public Policy
Furthermore, it is important to include an evaluation of the scope of application,
since even an important new right may be seriously limited e.g., when important
sectors are excluded. We talk about a high degree of legal misfit if there are
completely new legal rules, far-reaching gradual changes and/or important
qualitative innovations under the condition that all or a significant number
of workers are affected and that there is no essential limitation on the level of
practical significance. Otherwise, only a medium (or even low) degree of
policy misfit is attributed.
Another crucial element of any estimation of misfit caused by EU regulation
must be the economic consequences of a required reform (costs). Our first step
was to establish cost categories that a given directive can potentially trigger
(e.g., social security costs or additional administrative burdens for employers).
Secondly, we established empirically the number of groups of workers and
sectors actually affected by a directive and compared this to other cases. In
sum, values for total misfit consist of the highest parameter values found in the
subcategories of policy misfit and economic costs (cf. Falkner et al. 2005: 27–32).
Based on this operationalization, Table 1 provides an overview of the overall
policy misfit. What we see is that the directives did not create high policy misfit
in any of the cases. When compared to the other member states, none of the
Southern countries were among those where substantial adaptation was
required.
Of the countries in the Southern group, Portugal, with an average misfit score
of 1.8, had to implement most change – this concerned important standards
such as a 14th week of maternity leave or the protection of young workers
employed at night in non-industrial sectors. Italy (1.7) came close behind,
followed by Greece (1.5). Spain had the lowest level of average misfit (1.0),
but even here important changes had to be enacted, e.g., when it came to the
inclusion of overtime in working time calculations. Comparing all 15 member
states, Spain and Greece remained below the EU average (1.6), while Portugal
and Italy exceeded it.
Thus, contrary to certain expectations in the literature, Southern European
labour law was not far removed from the EU average. The legal situation is
apparently quite independent of redistributive policies. This finding is sup-
ported by the literature that emphasizes the segmented and polarized nature
of the Southern European employment regimes. They are said to be ‘[h]ighly
protective . . . in the core sectors of the economy’ (Ferrera 2005: 5) and to
‘suffer from serious imbalances that cause inequities and inefficiencies’
(Guillén and Matsaganis 2000: 120). Hence, it is not such a surprise that for
the Young Workers Directive the degree of misfit remained below the EU
average. One may ask, though, why then did the EU directive on pregnant
workers, a similarly vulnerable and thus protected group, generate relatively
greater misfit? This was because the EU standards took great care not to disad-
vantage pregnant workers in the labour market. In the Southern member states,
highly protective prior regulation, such as, for example, the complete ban of
female blue-collar workers from night work in all four countries, was often
Table 1 Overall misfit and total delays until essentially correct transposition in the Southern member states

M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy

Average score Average delay
Directive (misfit/delay after deadline) P E I GR EU-15 Southern states

Employment Contract Information Medium Low Low Medium 1.2

(91/533/EEC) 6 months 62 months 27 months 12 months 28.6 months 31.8 months
Pregnant Workers Medium Low Medium Medium 1.7
(92/85/EEC) 102.5 months 102.5 months 102.5 months 100 months 64.6 months 101.9 months
Working Time Medium Low Medium Low 1.8
(93/104/EC) 78 months 0 months 77 months 77 months 51.1 months 58 months
Young Workers Medium Low Low Low 1.3
(94/33/EC) 57.5 months 0 months 37.5 months 21 months 35.6 months 29 months
Parental Leave Low Low Medium Medium 1.9
(96/34/EC) 18 months 17 months 26 months 57 months 20.6 months 29.5 months
Part-time Work Medium Low Medium Low 1.6
(97/81/EC) 39.5 months 14 months 2.5 months 0 months 8.2 months 14 months
Average misfit 1.8 1.0 1.7 1.5 1.6
34.8 months 44 months

Source: Authors’ compilation on the basis of Falkner et al. (2005); cut-off date: April 2003.
Note: We calculated the average misfit for countries and Directives on the basis of the following scores: none ¼ 0; low ¼1;
medium ¼ 2; high ¼ 3.

477
478 Journal of European Public Policy
sustained. National actors either did not want, or did not dare, to change a
national system believed by many to be superior to the directive. Thus, even
a high level of labour law regulation can result in a high degree of misfit if
the latter is at odds with the ideological reasoning behind the directive.
To sum up, we can see that the overall misfit is far from being particularly
significant in the Southern European countries; in fact, it is below the EU-15
average. We also found important differences between the Southern countries.

5.2. Implementation performance in Southern Europe

Our analysis now turns to implementation performance. We compared the
countries’ average delays before essentially correct legal transposition – meaning
the successful fulfilment of most requirements of the six directives, with only
minor gaps or deviations (see Table 1). This criterion was chosen in order to
avoid presenting a distorted picture of a country’s performance on the basis
of very minor implementation deficiencies.
The total delays in Italy, Portugal and Greece clearly exceeded the EU average
of 34.8 months. However, the Southern countries were by no means the
only countries with significant delays. The list of countries with a very poor
performance record is actually headed by France, followed by Portugal, Italy,
Greece, Belgium and Luxembourg, in second to sixth place respectively.
Spain, on the other hand, ranks 11th out of 15 and thus demonstrates a high
degree of compliance. Therefore, this data does not confirm the above-
mentioned assumption that there is a typical, or even exclusive, Southern
European transposition deficit. Transposition was not delayed in all Southern
member states and not all member states showing substantial delays belonged
to the Southern group.
To ensure that EU standards do not become ‘paper tigers’, monitoring and
enforcement at the national level are of crucial importance. How successful are
monitoring and enforcement structures in the Southern member states? An
effective national enforcement policy is one of several criteria for application
of and thus good compliance with EU law. In this field, Southern Europe
does indeed show systematic weaknesses (Hartlapp 2005: ch. 5.10, Falkner
et al. 2005: 271 –6). In Spain, rivalry for competence between central enforce-
ment authorities and the labour inspectorates in the autonomous regions often
impedes optimal use of the limited resources (interviews E3 and E5). Obstacles
to efficient enforcement carry even more weight in the other Southern member
states. In Greece, the decentralized labour inspectorates were attached to the
local prefectures for most of the 1990s. There was a lack of common data
collection and problem evaluation resulting in a lack of co-ordinated action.
Thus, the overall system could not respond adequately to the most common
compliance problems, such as knowledge transfer and the control of new
policies in the high proportion of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the
country (interviews GR8 and GR3). In Italy, the existence of a whole range
of responsible agencies and authorities makes the co-ordination of supervision
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 479
cumbersome. Against this background, rapid intervention in response to
problematic situations is impossible, and conflicting institutional interests and
methodological approaches further paralyse the enforcement system (interview
I11). In Portugal, the number of labour inspectors per 100,000 dependent
workers was 7.9, thereupon significantly below the EU-15 average of 12.56
for the period studied (figures for 2000, Hartlapp (2005: 176)). But even a
large number of inspectors cannot guarantee that resources are used efficiently.
Although Greece and Denmark shared the highest ratio of labour inspectors of
all 15 member states, many of the Greek inspectors had not (yet) been
properly trained (interview GR5). Thus, the resources for inspections were
actually inadequate – an impediment especially for the correct implementation
of occupational health and safety standards, core to the working-time, and the
pregnant and young workers directives.
To sum up, overall implementation performance, measured as timely and
correct transposition and the ability to enforce the application of EU standards,
is weaker in the Southern countries than the EU-15 average. However, we
again observe important differences within the Southern group and find that
other member states also reveal substantial weaknesses in various aspects of
implementation performance.

5.3. Explaining transposition performance: are there Southern European

patterns?
There are persistent knowledge gaps in the literature attempting to explain EU
implementation in Southern Europe. In this section, we discuss the relevance of
the three strands presented above for our cases. And, we assess why there are no
typically ‘Southern’ patterns to the implementation processes, but rather
different ‘worlds of compliance’ in the South.
In respect to the misfit approach, we have shown that although the Southern
member states display a lower average misfit score than the EU-15 as a whole,
they also experience longer total delays prior to the essentially correct transposi-
tion of directives. Examining differences within the group, Spain shows the best
performance while also having the smallest adaptation requirements. This
appears to support the misfit argument at first glance. In contrast, however,
Greece has a misfit score that is below the EU average, but still experiences
substantially longer delays. In particular, the claim that low misfit is a reliable
indicator of smooth implementation can be discredited. This can be exemplarily
shown by the transposition of EU working time standards in Greece where,
despite low adaptation pressure, we observed a delay of 77 months. The case
study showed that the government and other political and social actors lacked
interest in the EU standards – although working time flexibilization was
controversially discussed before, during and after the transposition process.
Instead, due to administrative neglect, inertia prevailed for quite a long time.
This characterization is further supported by the rather rapid conclusion of
transposition once it was triggered by enforcement pressure from Brussels.
480 Journal of European Public Policy
Overall, our case studies revealed that the misfit approach cannot sufficiently
account for transposition delays as the result of administrative neglect, even
in cases of minor adaptation requirements. Other phenomena, such as
linkage to national reform processes (e.g., the Working Time Directive in
Italy), are also not captured. Thus, the degree of misfit does not appear to be
of great value in explaining the success or failure of implementation (Falkner
et al. 2005: 289– 94; also Mastenbroek and Kaeding 2006), nor does a
typical Southern pattern emerge here as the ‘(No) Southern Problem’ argument
advances.
It has also been argued in the literature that transposition may be delayed
because the administrative system lacks expertise and resources so that the necessary
work cannot be done on time. Contrary to expectations, this factor was relevant
in ‘only’ 5 cases out of 24 (above all in Greece and Portugal). A structural deficit
in resources that led to administrative bottlenecks, i.e., too few officials and a
lack of financial means, was only observed in the Greek ministerial unit
responsible for health and safety at work.
Our case studies also revealed implementation problems caused by adminis-
trative co-ordination problems and divided responsibility for transposition. This
especially concerned the directives on working time, young workers and preg-
nant workers, which involve both general employment rights and health and
safety provisions. It is true that the likelihood of delays increases as multiple
units come into play. In Italy, we found clear examples of delayed transposition
due to administrative failure. Although the required adaptation did not generate
great interest or conflict among political actors, it took more than two years to
adopt the first transposition decree for the Pregnant Workers Directive and
almost four years in the case of the Employment Contract Directive. In the
latter case, Italy already possessed a number of regulations on written employ-
ment contracts from the 1980s and, thus, only needed to adjust minor details.
The absence of any sign of political debate or opposition leads us to conclude
that administrative inefficiency prevented the timely start of the transposition
process. This is all the more astonishing given that Italy is the only Southern
member state that has a relatively powerful watchdog unit with ample resources
and direct access to the head of government. Similarly, part of the incorrect
transposition of the Pregnant Workers Directive in Greece was caused by
conflicts between the Ministry for Social Affairs and the Ministry of Defence
on the inclusion of armed forces (interview GR1). And the significantly late
transposition of the Young Workers Directive was partly a consequence of
the need to co-ordinate the positions of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry
of Agriculture on child labour in the forestry and agricultural sector. Generally,
although genuine co-ordination problems occurred only infrequently, they
occurred more often in the member states studied here (4 out of 24 cases)
than in the EU-15 (8 out of 90 cases) providing some evidence along the
lines of the ‘Southern Problem’ literature.
Turning to the third strand of literature, which links implementation
performance to the involvement of social interest groups, our empirical results on
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 481
the EU-15 indicated that in a considerable number of cases the social partners
proved to contribute to transposition delays. In a few cases, they even caused the
enactment of flawed transposition measures, for example in order to accommo-
date the interests of a particular social partner organization. The Young Workers
Directive in Portugal provides a typical example of the link between incorrect
implementation and cost containment. During a highly contested transposition
process, the socialist minority government (partly) gave in to employer organ-
ization demands not to extend night work restrictions from industry to other
sectors. The new legislation covers all sectors, but the flexibility provided in
the directive was used to lower the protection of young workers in the industrial
sector. However, a non-regression clause prohibits such lowering of national
standards. Overall, social partners do play an important role in the transposition
of directives. This logic seemed to be particularly strong in cases of minority
governments. But even if governments are institutionally empowered to act
unilaterally, they often wish to consult one or both sides of industry prior to
transposition. However, the (non-)involvement of the social partners – either
during the upstream phase (negotiation at EU level) or during the downstream
phase (transposition) – did not have a systematic influence on the countries’
transposition performance; for details, see Leiber (2005: 195 –213). This
leads us to conclude that neither weak nor strong social partnership necessarily
harms transposition processes, as some strands of the ‘Southern Problem’ litera-
ture imply. We found variance in both the overall importance of the explanatory
factor and the direction of influence.
The importance of social actors in influencing the transposition of EU Direc-
tives differed systematically across our ‘worlds’. In Italy and Spain, social interest
groups’ involvement in the pre-parliamentary and parliamentary procedures
often contributed to transposition delays. With respect to the directives
studied, a similar logic was found in Portugal (but see below for the country’s
typical national implementation patterns). In Greece, on the other hand, a
frequently observed procedural transposition pattern was inertia based on
inactivity, not only by administrative actors and the government but also by
interest groups.
These observations lead us to the ‘worlds of compliance’ approach. Our findings
show that the three literature strands presented in Section 3 do not adequately
explain the different implementation patterns and performance of the Southern
member states.4 We argue that this is because the four countries studied in this
article belong to different ‘worlds of compliance’. We classified Spain as belong-
ing to the world of domestic politics, and Portugal and Greece as belonging to
the world of neglect. Italy, by contrast, displays the typical characteristics of
the ‘world of domestic politics’ during transposition, but its performance in
enforcement and application is rather weak and is characterized by neglect.
We now seek to show why this typology is more fruitful for understanding
implementation in the South than the existing ‘Southern problem’ literature.
In Portugal and Greece, neglect was a common feature of all phases of the
implementation process. In general, transposition processes were primarily
482 Journal of European Public Policy
dominated by the administrative sphere and hence the administrative
inefficiencies observed played out strongest here.5 In three of the cases in
Greece (Employment Contract Information, Pregnant Workers and Young
Workers), even trade unions and left-wing governments were not interested
in the transposition, and enforcement by the European Commission was necess-
ary even to get the processes started. Also in Portugal, transposition is typically
influenced by factors such as administrative resources. However, this general
picture was not mirrored by our six cases due to exceptional circumstances.
The ruling minority Partido Socialista (PS) had drawn up an election manifesto
to negotiate transposition of most of these directives within the framework of
broader social dialogue (1996–1999; for details see Hartlapp (2005: 147–8))
resulting in a politicization of all issues and their inclusion in national debates.
Nevertheless, based on our interviews, we hold that beyond these exceptional
circumstances neglect dominates the implementation processes in Portugal.
This is supported by the observation that prior to the PS minority government
the transposition of the Pregnant Workers, Working Time and Young Workers
Directives was already delayed due to the failure of a dormant administration.
Moreover, significant enforcement problems were found in both Greece and
Portugal – above all grounded in serious shortcomings in administrative
resources with respect to adequately trained labour inspectors.
In Spain, in contrast, transposition was clearly dominated by a logic of dom-
estic politics. All transposition processes were directly or indirectly linked to
ongoing debates and national reform processes. Actors and interests prevailing
in these processes determined the speed and content of the implementation.
Most of the time, this resulted in timely and essentially correct transposition,
e.g., of the Young Workers Directive, where the EU standards could be
saddled onto an almost finalized and no longer cumbersome reform project
and where, thus, implementation was smooth. However, transposition delays
could not be prevented where negotiations between parties and interest
groups were controversial. A case in point was health and safety of pregnant
workers, where obeying domestic ideological concerns on ‘protection’ versus
‘labour market participation’ led to one of the longest delays in our sample.
Concerning application, the decentralization of the enforcement system resulted
in some deficits, but overall the system did not seem as weak as in the other
countries of this group.
Finally, four out of six cases of non-compliance in Italy were caused by gov-
ernment instability and conflicts of interest between political parties and/or
both sides of industry – a typical pattern of the ‘world of domestic politics’.
The most prominent example was the transposition of the Working Time
Directive, which took more than six and a half years to be transposed. There
were several reform steps during the 1990s, and originally the transposition
was to be based on a deal between both sides of industry. However, among
other things, because it was linked to the issue of the 35-hour-week, a legislative
solution was only found after considerable delay. Despite the characterization of
transposition as dominated by a political logic, the serious shortcomings in the
 M. Hartlapp and S. Leiber: The implementation of EU social policy 483
organization of the Italian enforcement system indicate that generally, the
Italian response to EU requirements at the enforcement level rather follows
the logic of neglect.6
In summary, according to these patterns of dealing with adaptation require-
ments, the various Southern states represent different ‘worlds of compliance’.
This provides new evidence on why the Southern member states are more
different than alike when it comes to their implementation patterns and
outcomes.

6. CONCLUSIONS
This article has studied the implementation of EU social policy directives in the
four Southern European member states – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. It
took as a starting point their relative similarity in many respects and the debate
on whether and why there is a ‘Southern Problem’. Our analysis resulted in
three main conclusions on Southern Europe.
First, the study demonstrated, contrary to expectations expressed in the
literature, that misfit in the four countries was on average less severe than in
the EU-15. We also found substantial differences between Spain (very low
misfit in overall terms) and the rest of the ‘group’ (small to medium misfit
varying across directives).
Second, at the level of legal transposition and with respect to their capacity to
monitor and enforce application, the average performance by the Southern
countries was indeed rather poor. However, the deficiencies were neither
uniform, nor can non-compliance be considered an exclusively Southern
problem.
Third, when looking at explanations for the success or failure of implemen-
tation, there is no general ‘Southern Problem’. At first sight, this seems in line
with earlier research (Börzel 2003), but contrary to the assumption that the
same factors are equally influential in all EU countries, we put forward the argu-
ment that there are different patterns of typically digesting adaptation require-
ments. Although the classification of the Southern countries into different
‘worlds of compliance’ does not lead us to predict precise implementation out-
comes, it allows us to assume that transposition success in Italy and Spain –
ideal-typically – is more likely to depend on factors of domestic politics,
while in Greece and Portugal implementation problems are located mainly in
the administrative sphere. Thus, much like the older ‘Southern Problem’
approach, our argument stresses the relevance of national factors. In contrast,
however, our explanation underlines that the Southern countries are diverse
in their domestic structures and implementation patterns.
We recognize that the social dimension in Southern Europe does not remain
unaffected by European integration. However, our findings contradict the
assertion that there is a particularly urgent need to catch up with the EU
social acquis and that the difficulties faced are of a uniform nature.
484 Journal of European Public Policy
Biographical notes: Miriam Hartlapp is Head of the Independent Junior
Research Group ‘Position Formation in the EU Commission’ at the Social
Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), Germany. Simone Leiber is Senior
Researcher in social policy at the Institute of Economic and Social Research
at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Address for correspondence: Miriam Hartlapp, PEU, Social Science Research

Center Berlin (WZB), Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany.
email: hartlapp@wzb.eu/Simone Leiber, Institute of Economic Research,
Hans Böckler Foundation, Hans-Böckler-Str. 39, 40476 Düsseldorf, Germany.
email: simone-leiber@boeckler.de

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
An earlier version of this article was presented at the 15th International Confer-
ence of the Council for European Studies (29 March –2 April 2006) in Chicago.
We thank all participants of ‘Southern Europe panel’ as well as the anonymous
referees of the journal for their helpful comments and suggestions. We are also
very grateful to our co-authors of ‘Complying with Europe’, Gerda Falkner and
Oliver Treib, for stimulating debates.

NOTES
1 We anticipate that the ‘world of law observance’ performs much better than the
‘world of neglect’. In the ‘world of domestic politics’ we can expect the imple-
mentation performance to fall in between the other two worlds only over a large
number of cases.
2 On different ‘legal cultures of Europe’ when analysing peoples’ willingness to comply
with law or European Court of Justice case law, see also Gibson and Caldeira (1996).
3 In principle, misfit can concern either policy content (policy misfit) or apply to
matters of procedure and affect domestic politics and/or the polity – in our Southern
cases we did not find evidence of politics/polity-related misfit.
4 Our interviews also included questions on how far the implementation processes
studied revealed typical patterns.
5 In the overall project, we systematically tested for a broad range of factors expected to
be relevant along the lines of the three worlds (Falkner et al. 2005). In these case
studies, we also provide detailed empirical evidence of which factors did not play a
role in the respective ‘worlds’.
6 This is exactly the pattern also typically found in Central and Eastern European
countries (‘world of dead letters’, Falkner et al. 2008).

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