The successful transposition of EU provisions by member states: Analysis on four European directives Asya Zhelyazkova Utrecht University, ICS Abstract The implementation of EU policies has hardly been studied from the perspective of the actual performance by national policy-makers. The present study fills the gap of EU policy implementation research by analyzing variation between member states‟ compliance with the provisions of different EU laws. Thus, it departs from previous quantitative studies on EU compliance by focusing on the extent to which member states correctly implement European policies. In addition, this research relaxes the assumption that national governments transpose directives as a whole. Instead, they might comply with certain aspects of an EU policy and fail to transpose others (Thomson, 2009; Zhelyazkova and Torenvlied, forthcoming). While extensive legal analyses and research provides better understanding about the nature of compliance at the transposition stage, explanations follow from the public administration literature on EU compliance. Hypotheses are tested by combining qualitative data collection with a quantitative research design. Results show that member states vary not only in the way they implement different EU directives, but also in the extent to which they comply with different provisions of these directives. Introduction The success of the European integration project depends on the compliance of member states with EU decisions. In the EU context, compliance is defined as the extent to which national actors conform to the EU requirements by incorporating, applying and enforcing EU laws into national context (Versluis, 2007). The successful enforcement and application of EU laws is conditional upon the extent to which member states have adequately incorporated the EU laws in their national legislation; a process that is referred to as transposition. For example, do national laws sufficiently protect employees against different forms of discrimination and harassment as prescribed by the EU provisions? To what extent can consumers rely on remedies for defective goods based on the national transposition of EU directives? Are there differences across member states in the extent to which authors of original work are protected against copyright infringement and do these differences conflict with the EU requirements? Because such questions address implementation problems with specific issues of EU legislation, studies on compliance with EU laws should focus on a comparison between the substantive intentions of the provisions of an EU law, and the activities of national actors. The present study aims to describe and explain variation in the transposition performance by member states with regard to specific provisions of different EU policies. Currently, many studies use infringement proceedings initiated by the EU Commission against a member state as a formal indicator for non-compliance (Mbaye,