In a joint working document dated Monday 12 February presented at the Council competitiveness and growth working group on 13 February, Germany and France have dealt a serious blow to proposals for a services e-card.
The two member states are of the view that the European Commission proposal of 10 January 2017 (see EUROPE 11699 and 11700) does not appear to be able to achieve the Commission’s own objectives – greater transparency in national procedures and increased simplification of administrative procedures.
In its introductory comments, the Franco-German paper suggests that the architecture (a directive and a regulation as well as large number of acts of secondary legislation) proposed by the Commission is “particularly complex” risking establishing a “costly system” which is not coherent with the existing or envisaged instruments – namely the European professional card, points of single contact and a single digital gateway – “from a practical and legal point of view”.
The two member states argue, as a consequence, that: - the digitisation of the procedures will not add any value compared to the services directive; - the insurance provisions increase the administrative burden; - the intended measures of linguistic facilitation or production of evidence seem likely to make the implementation of national legislations more difficult and to increase legal uncertainty. Above all, they state that the objectives on increasing transparency in national procedures can be achieved through the single digital gateway.
The Commission proposal fails to preserve the balance realised in the services directive and paves the way for the reintroduction of additional regulatory barriers, the paper says. At the same time, the services e-card would deprive member states of the means to ensure full respect of their national requirements. France and Germany also consider that the mechanism envisaged to assess the equivalence of the legislations of the host and home member states “does not bring practicable solution for promoting mutual recognition” of legislation in force.
A further source of concern for the two countries is the possibility given to service providers to choose their member state of origin, without any effective link being guaranteed. This, they say, “does not guarantee the proper application of the rules provided for posting of workers and of social security formalities” and they conclude that it is likely to undermine the conditions of fair competition between companies as well as the confidence in the internal market.
The paper concludes on a serious note: “Germany and France consider that the proposed European services e-card is not an appropriate basis for improving the functioning of the internal market for services”. They make clear, however, that they remain fully committed to exploring all “viable” solutions based on in-depth impact assessment and “adequate consideration” of stakeholders’ views. Any such solution, they say, should comply fully with the services directive and existing instruments.
It may be remembered that the French authorities have already made their position known in a lengthy note in which they suggest that Council adoption seemed “unlikely” in the short to medium term (see EUROPE 11910).
In the European Parliament, the proposal seems to be taking on water. Two Parliamentary committees have recently called for it to be rejected (see EUROPE 11933). Within the EPP Group, fault lines appear to be developing between the delegations from East and West Europe. The German delegation would seem in an internal memo to be distancing itself from the Commission proposal, making adoption by Parliament increasingly unlikely in the view of a number of Parliamentary sources (see EUROPE 11960). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)