>The legislation approved today still faces a final vote in the European Parliament in January (where it’s possible, though very unlikely, it will be rejected). After that, individual EU member states will still get to choose how to put the directive in law. In other words, each country will be able to interpret the directive as they see fit.
It's not totally over yet, both the final vote and the implementation in member countries can disarm the worst parts of the directive.
Individual countries cannot "interpret the directive as they see fit". Transposition has to match the directive, otherwise the whole excercise would be pointless.
They can interpret anything sufficiently vague as they see fit. For example Article 10 of Directive 2004/38/EC states that a government shall only require "a document attesting to the existence of a family relationship", which most people would consider to be a marriage certificate, it also states the residence permit will be granted within 6 months of presentation of the documens. Article 25 limits the cost of the issuance of the residence permit.
Unlike many EU countries, the Netherlands requires that the marriage certificate is "legalised" and charges for the process. They will not even accept the documentation before you go through this extra legal procedure thereby increasing the total time to over 6 months. Under some interpretation of article 10 and 25, this would be illegal, they have a different interpretation.
You can find various compliance studies for directive 2004/38/EC and other directives as well. It is just a fact in Europe that the transposition into local law leads to inconsistent application of the law. Applying for the same visa (from the European perspective) in the Netherlands and in Germany can be two wildly different experiences.
The point is that, overall, the requirements of the directive must be met
Your example is actually a good one: The Netherlands might have added that the document must be legalised but their law still matches the directive's requirement and the added restriction is neither unreasonable nor onerous and might keep in line with the country's practices.
The bottom line is that those who hope that transposition will change the directive in any meaningful way are going to be sorely disappointed.
Not true. Many of the directives differ in countries (even major ones - for example countries in EU that don't use Euro). EU wants people to believe it is USA but it is not. The directives are not enforceable directly but if you want to be good EU country (which has its benefits) then you need to behave :)
Directives have to be transposed but, again, transposition has to match the contents of the directive otherwise there is no point.
It is possible to lodge a complaint with the Commission if transposition is deemed inadequate (and I'm sure copyright holders would do exactly that), and the Commission may bring a case against the country before the ECJ.
It's not totally over yet, both the final vote and the implementation in member countries can disarm the worst parts of the directive.