At a tripartite meeting in Paris on Monday 8 April, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, will propose to his German and Italian counterparts, Robert Habeck and Adolfo Urso, that after the European elections they launch an EU-wide administrative “simplification project”.
Mr Le Maire told journalists on Thursday 4 April that we need to “start cutting red tape” at European level, because “too much red tape“ is holding back productivity. France will propose to Germany and Italy that, after June, “an ‘omnibus’ directive be drawn up to revise all European standards”, he added.
The French Ministry of the Economy is also suggesting that the threshold for the number of employees qualifying as an SME be raised from 250 to 500, as recommended by the Commission in May 2003. This would allow ‘mid-cap’ companies to be excluded from certain regulatory obligations in the area of accounting and financial standards and non-financial reporting, according to a source at Bercy.
At the tripartite meeting, France would also like to address the issue of “environmental rebalancing”, said Mr Le Maire, admitting that Germany was reticent on this point. In his view, the climate transition choice is a “costly choice” for businesses and households, and the EU cannot afford to allow companies from third countries to sell their more carbon-intensive products on the Internal market without rebalancing.
The time has come for “the globalisation of rivalries”: Europe must defend its interests and, if need be, “show its teeth when faced with adversaries who will do us no favours” stressed the Minister. He cited China, which wants to sell its surplus production to the EU, and the United States, which is playing the protectionist card by attracting foreign companies with the IRA and cheap energy.
According to Bercy, France is suggesting the following measures: reserve State aid for goods that comply with the strictest environmental standards (e.g. bonuses for electric vehicles); reserve certain public procurement contracts for goods produced in Europe.
The third issue that Mr Le Maire wishes to raise with his counterparts on Monday is the EU’s independence in terms of energy and access to raw materials, an issue already addressed at the first tripartite meeting (see EUROPE 13282/12).
The aim of these ministerial meetings between Germany, France and Italy is to help draw up an economic and industrial strategy for the EU. The second meeting was devoted to artificial intelligence (see EUROPE 13209/19). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)