During a plenary debate on the freedom to provide services in the internal market that took place on the evening of Monday 18 January, Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner for Innovation and Culture, assured MEPs that the European Commission does not intend to give up on the issue.
Speaking on behalf of Thierry Breton, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Ms Gabriel said: “As you have seen, we have decided to withdraw the proposals regarding notifications under the Services Directive and the e-card from the Commission’s work programme for 2021”.
Ms Gabriel does not, however, consider that the Commission’s aims have been “abandoned”. “On the contrary: although we regret the fact that we have not been able to pursue these initiatives with you, we will be mobilising all of our resources to chart a new course”, the Commissioner said.
The Commission plans to present a report on the role of the internal market on 17 March, along with the update on the industrial strategy (see EUROPE 12605/14). The report should include a section that deals with services.
Lively debate in the European Parliament
The Commissioner’s intervention focused on a report on strengthening the single market and the free movement of services prepared by Morten Løkkegaard (Renew Europe, Denmark), which is due to be voted on in plenary on Wednesday 20 January. Løkkegaard is renowned as the unfortunate rapporteur for the services e-card project (see EUROPE 11986/16).
There were heated debates between the pro-liberalisation groups, roughly speaking the EPP, ECR and Renew Europe political groups on the one hand, but with regional disparities - the national delegations from the East and the Scandinavian countries are often more liberal than those from Western Europe - and the Greens/EFA, S&D and The Left groups, whose main objective is to fight against social dumping, on the other.
Marc Botenga (The Left, Belgium), speaking on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, expressed regret that Løkkegaard had not taken up the items in the opinion provided by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), as his report did not contain mention of either employment relations or mobile workers. “From a social perspective, this a very poor report”, a parliamentary source told EUROPE. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)