Brussels, 24/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 April, the EPP Group at the European Parliament sent an open letter to European Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso, setting out a number of urgent measures to encourage the return of economic growth in Europe by improving implementation of the single market, encouraging the growth of small businesses and hence job creation, scrapping red tape and pursuing structural reforms to boost growth and employment in all the EU member states. “To carry our economies forward we have to make our growth strategies more concrete and more credible - which means binding”, said EPP leader Joseph Daul (France) in a press release. He said the EPP “believes that the Euro Plus Pact and the EUROPE 2020 Strategy are the right roadmaps, but they will only be successful if their targets are binding. We need to 'lock in' member states and seek a more binding mechanism to ensure that they really live up to commitments made”.
Internal Market. Daul said: “We need real single market governance; this means that we need a strong Commission which will enforce the law. We are ready to support, as a concrete proposal, a 'fast track infringement procedure'. We may want to consider establishing an 'internal market prosecutor' who could prepare infringement procedures independently and submit these to the College of Commissioners for adoption”. He suggests immediately focussing on some important single market directives to be transposed more quickly - for example, the late payment directive and the consumer rights directive, and that in these areas people should focus on an identical transposition in all member states.
Speaking in Copenhagen on Monday at the meeting of national parliament representatives (COSAC), EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier set out the Commission's focus for the single market, explaining that the June 2012 European Council would be receiving a report from the Commission on progress in implementing the services directive. Greece is the only country to be taken to the European Court of Justice for failing to properly introduce the services directive into its own legislation. Barnier said that guidelines would be unveiled for helping people get better access to services and avoid the postcode lottery for e-commerce. Eleven of the twelve priority areas in the Single Market Act have already seen action taken - the only part lacking is publication of draft electronic signature legislation. A new phase will start after the summer break, focusing on measures that can stimulate economic growth in the immediate term. Barnier promised a new single market governance strategy for June 2012, setting out ambitious targets for the transposition of EU legislation and introducing greater coherence in the evaluation of economic stimulus policies. (MB/transl.fl)