Brussels Fires Twelve Legal Warnings at Portugal in a Week, From Consumer Credit to Dolphin Bycatch

The European Commission took 12 formal steps against Portugal in the space of a week, in two infringement packages published on 25 September and 1 October. Four are reasoned opinions, the last stage before the Commission can take a country to the Court of Justice of the European Union; one concerns the directive protecting people who take out consumer loans. The other eight are letters of formal notice, the first stage, mostly over directives Portugal has not yet written into national law.

The backlog was already growing. In its latest Single Market Scoreboard, which counts transposition notifications made up to 5 December 2025, the Commission ranked Portugal 25th of the 27 member states on Single Market directives, with 20 overdue and a transposition deficit of 2.0 percent, twice the 1 percent ceiling EU leaders set in 2007.

The four reasoned opinions

The October infringements package, adopted on 1 October, sends reasoned opinions to Portugal in four cases.

• Consumer credit. Portugal is one of 16 member states that have still not notified full transposition of the Consumer Credit Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/2225), which was due by 20 November 2025 (case INFR(2026)0122). A Court referral could come with a request for financial penalties.
• Bank rules. Portugal is one of six countries that have not communicated measures for the Sixth Capital Requirements Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1619), due by 10 January 2026 (INFR(2026)0203).
• Dolphin and porpoise bycatch. Portugal has no effective system to monitor dolphins and harbour porpoises caught by accident in fishing gear, as the Habitats Directive requires, the Commission says (INFR(2020)4038). The first letter went out in November 2023.
• Maritime security. The Commission finds that Portugal does not carry out all the administrative and control tasks required by EU law on the security of ships, port facilities and ports (INFR(2025)2166).

Eight letters of formal notice

The October package also opens two customs cases: Portugal has not deployed all the functions of Centralised Clearance for Import, which lets businesses declare imports in their home country wherever goods enter the EU (INFR(2026)2163), nor the Automated Export System, due by the end of 2023 (INFR(2026)2134).

A week earlier, on 25 September, a transposition package named Portugal in six letters for directives whose deadlines passed this summer:

• the Right to Repair Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1799), which lets consumers ask for repairs of goods such as smartphones and washing machines at a reasonable price after the legal guarantee runs out, and its extension to domestic heaters (Directive (EU) 2026/74), both due by 31 July 2026;
• the updated Industrial and Livestock Rearing Emissions Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1785), due by 1 July 2026; no member state transposed it fully on time;
• the recast Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1788), due by 5 August 2026, which only Italy fully transposed on time;
• parts of the sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1640) on access to beneficial ownership registers, due by 10 July 2026;
• a delegated directive (Directive (EU) 2025/2062) adding three new psychoactive substances, 2-MMC, NEP and 4-BMC, to the EU definition of a drug, due by 12 July 2026.

What the scoreboard shows

The Commission's transposition scoreboard covers December 2024 to November 2025 and has been online since at least February, so it does not yet count this summer's missed deadlines. On its figures, only Spain (27) and Poland (21) had more overdue Single Market directives than Portugal (20). Portugal had met the 1 percent target a year earlier; the Commission listed it among the countries whose deficit then rose most sharply, by 100 percent, and said that Portugal and Spain in particular had added to their backlog for a second year running. It warned that Spain, Poland and Portugal "will still miss the 1% target if they do not take decisive and drastic action to speed up the process".

The Portugal country page is kinder on other measures. Portugal's conformity deficit, the share of directives the Commission considers incorrectly transposed, was 0.7 percent against an EU average of 1.1 percent, sixth best in the EU. Its overdue directives were 9.9 months late on average (EU average 9.7), and it had one directive more than two years overdue: the 2019 Electricity Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/944). On infringements, Portugal had 34 pending Single Market cases against an EU average of 25, ranking 22nd, but the shortest average case duration in the EU, at 24.6 months against 44.5.

What it means for households

• Borrowing: the Consumer Credit Directive is meant to strengthen consumer protection and make credit deals more transparent and fair. Portugal has not yet told Brussels it has fully transposed it.
• Repairs: the same applies to the right to repair after the guarantee ends.
• No fines yet: letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions are warnings. Financial penalties can only be imposed by the Court of Justice, after the Commission refers a case.

Portugal has two months to answer each of the October reasoned opinions, until early December, before any of those cases can go to the Court. The next scoreboard, counting directives due by 30 November 2026, will show whether this summer's deadlines were met.