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The Commission presented a package of measures to make the Single Market work better for citizens and businesses.
The Single Market is one of the EU's greatest achievements. It enables people, services, goods and capital to move freely. It has fuelled economic growth and made the everyday life of European businesses and consumers easier. A functioning Single Market stimulates competition and trade, improves efficiency, raises quality, and helps consumers benefit from more varied and better priced products and services.
Despite the overall success of the Single Market, its benefits do not always materialise because rules are not known or implemented, or they are undermined by other barriers.
Last week the European Commission continued to deliver on its Single Market Strategy - the Commission's roadmap to unlock the full potential of the Single Market.
The package of measures adopted will make it easier for people and companies to manage their paperwork online in their home country or when working, living or doing business in another EU country and it will help ensure that commonly agreed EU rules are respected.
The three concrete initiatives adopted by the Commission are:
A Single Digital Gateway
In the future, people and companies will have easier access, through a single digital entry point, to high quality information, online administrative procedures and assistance services. Key administrative procedures will have to be made available online, including requests for a birth certificate, to register a car, start a business or register for social security benefits. The Single Digital Gateway could help companies save more than EUR 11 billion per year, and EU citizens up to 855 000 hours of their time annually.
A Single Market Information Tool
Single Market rights, for people as well as companies, can only be fully exercised if the commonly agreed rules are fit for purpose and correctly applied throughout Europe. To ensure this, timely access to comprehensive, reliable, and accurate market information is crucial. The Single Market Information Tool will allow the Commission, in targeted cases, to source defined and readily available data (such as, for example, cost structure, pricing policy or product volumes sold) in cases of serious difficulties with the application of EU Single Market legislation.
A SOLVIT Action Plan
The Commission will build on the success of SOLVIT, a free of charge service which provides rapid and pragmatic solutions to people and companies all over Europe when they experience difficulties with public administrations while moving or doing business cross-border in the EU. The Action Plan aims to increase the use of SOLVIT by making sure that more citizens and businesses can easily access it and by improving data collection so that evidence from SOLVIT cases can be used to improve the functioning of the Single Market.
(Source: The European Commission)
