The European Forum of Independent Professionals (EFIP) has called on the European Parliament and the Council to beef up the services package and produced a series of proposals for this purpose on Tuesday 31 January.
While hailing the proposals presented by the European Commission on 10 January (see EUROPE 11701), EFIP calls for a much higher level of ambition to enable independents to gain access to the markets of other member states, especially cross-border.
In the first instance, EFIP points out that implementation of the European services e-card is entirely in the hands of the member states. In the view of EFIP Secretary General Marco Torregrossa: “If the e-card’s only purpose is to simplify compliance with unnecessary, inconsistent, and frequently changing requirements, that would fail to address the root cause of the problem”.
EFIP argues that implementation efforts must focus on the temporary provision of cross-border services, on the one hand, and SMEs, on the other. It calls, too, for independents, including those who do not belong to regulated professions, to be able to become one-person enterprises.
The organisation does not stop there but goes on to offer other proposals, such as making the card valid throughout the EU and not just in the member state where the application was lodged, and putting in place tests to help national authorities improve the services provided and indicators as part of the European semester to ensure greater convergence of economic policies.
EFIP calls for the electronic platform that lies at the heart of the e-card system to offer an application programme interface (API) to third-party developers in order to ensure that services are tailored as closely as possible to the needs of users. Lastly, it urges that the card be “fully operational” from 1 January 2018.
The services package will give the co-legislators much to do over the coming months. We are told that this week, the Council begins its first analysis work on Wednesday and Thursday internally in the working group 'Competitiveness and growth'. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)