The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes to have the Council’s position on the Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI) adopted at the meeting of the Member States' Committee of Permanent Representatives on Wednesday 7 June. In a note dated 1 June, consulted by EUROPE, the Presidency considers that this latest compromise text brings together the positions of the 27 Member States and can be the subject of an agreement.
The main amendments to previous versions aimed at restricting the scope of the regulation (see EUROPE 13174/6, 13155/1) are maintained. For example, the Council wants to give itself the power to validate or not the activation, extension and deactivation of the instrument's alertness and emergency modes.
It also removes the obligation for Member States to send information to the Commission on their strategic reserves. The concept of priority orders has also been withdrawn.
But the Swedish Presidency has gone even further to limit the scope of the instrument in its latest amendments. In order to convince the EU27, it has removed the concept of obstacles to free movement posed by Member States. As a result, all obligations to share information with the Commission on such obstacles have disappeared. This is so as not to “interfere with the existing Commission powers under the notification systems pursuant to other Union legal acts”, according to the Swedish Presidency.
The information sharing required of companies is also restricted. The latest version of the regulation limits the scope for the Commission to require an economic operator to provide certain information. For example, the Commission must also take into account the administrative burden for the company before imposing such an obligation, and this is even more necessary for SMEs, says the Swedish Presidency.
In the same vein, it is proposing to set a ceiling of €50,000 on the fines imposed on SMEs for non-cooperation.
Finally, a number of changes have been made to the ‘public procurement’ section: the article prohibiting Member States participating in a common public procurement contract from deviating from this contract and entering into an individual public procurement contract has been deleted.
See the compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/790 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)