By 31 May 2015, 23 of the 28 EU member states had fulfilled their legal obligations to establish "EUTR competent authorities" and sanctions regimes and to begin checks on EU operators. The remaining five member states (Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Spain) were still in the fulfilment process. The number of EUTR monitoring organizations formally recognized by the EU increased from three in January 2014 to 11 in May 2015.