Brussels, 05/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - It is very likely that there will be no further annual reports on single market integration, European Internal market Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska quietly indicated when addressing the EPP Group in the European Parliament on Wednesday 4 February.
The practice was begun in 2012 to complement the 2013 annual growth review with conclusions on integration of the single market for goods, services, capital and labour. Discussed thereafter by the Council, the information gathered also fed into the formulation of country-specific recommendations. A second edition was presented in October 2013, with the annual growth survey for 2014. For the Commission, that clearly is the end of it. In October of last year, there was no report on single market integration accompanying the 2015 growth survey, and it is highly unlikely that stock will be taken of how existing rules to strengthen the single market are being implemented.
Without going into any detail, the commissioner told the EPP MEPs that the Commission was “improving our reporting tools to make them as effective as possible”. Consideration is being given, for instance, to streamlining the reports and focusing on economic indicators. (MD)