EU framework law
The rejected EU Constitution proposed that framework laws should be the new name for directives. This simplification of wording was deleted in the Lisbon Treaty from 2007.
Directives are general injunctions which are left to the national member states to implement in detail. Directives/framework laws can have direct effect (i.e. apply at the national level irrespective of being iformally ntegrated into national law) if they are precise enough.
Countries can be fined for not implementing directives into national law within the set deadline.
Links
See directives.
