The President of the Jacques Delors Institute, Enrico Letta, returned to certain points of his report on the Internal Market at a conference organised by the New Economic Forum in Brussels on Wednesday 2 October. He spoke at length about the importance of removing obstacles for businesses in the EU. In this respect, he suggested to stop using the term ‘cross-border’ to describe intra-European transactions. “The very idea of talking about cross-border transactions is a mistake, because there are no borders. Otherwise, we’re still in the 80s”, he said.
Addressing representatives of European industry, he said that his proposal for a 28th regime for companies wishing to go beyond national legal frameworks had been positively received throughout Europe, including by governments. “I have not felt any negative reaction from governments”, he assures us.
More broadly, to avoid the fragmentation of rules on the single market, Mr Letta felt that the EU should only use regulations, and no longer directives. These are being transposed too slowly and complicatedly, leading to too many differences in rules between Member States. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)