Abstract
In the EU legislative practice, legislative directives (their non-essential elements) are sometimes supplemented or amended by EU delegated regulations, that is, not by EU delegated directives, as one would reasonably expect, given the quite different nature and effects of EU directives and EU regulations. This question-begging practice has rather significant implications especially for the national transposition and application of the legal acts in question.
The purpose of this contribution is to identify and analyse these implications. The analysis leads to two conclusions.
First, the provisions of an EU directive that were amended by an EU delegated regulation can and should as a rule be transposed into national legislation, but without concealing the fact that they were amended by an EU regulation. Secondly, the provisions of an EU delegated regulation that supplement certain non-essential elements of an EU legislative directive cannot as a rule be transposed into a national legislative measure transposing the (supplemented) directive in question.
However, specific normative measures must be taken on the national level for the sake of ensuring full application in a sufficiently clear and precise manner of both the supplemented EU directive and the supplementing EU delegated regulation.