09/03/2017 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 6 March, the European Commission announced its roadmap for assessing the regulation on the functioning of the internal market and the free movement of merchandise between member states (Regulation 2679/98). The regulation will focus on two main themes: the barriers and disconnects in the free movement of goods within the EU and the different ways used to keep member states and companies informed when there is a major disruption to the movement of goods and the functioning of the regulation as an instrument for ensuring the free movement of goods in the event of major disruption. In cases involving the latter, the Commission seeks to identify the “best practices” used by the respective national authorities and those contained within the new instruments. Interested parties have four weeks to respond to this assessment. So far, only one British response can be seen, the first line of which claims that, “The internal market has increasingly become a bureaucratic nightmare for SMEs”. (PH)