The European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) has commissioned a study on the provision of services in the internal market, which is due to be published in a fortnight. This work shows that the internal market strategy presented by the European Commission in May (see EUROPE 13645/1) does not tackle head-on the problem of the movement of services within the EU. The report’s co-author, Bernard Hoekman from the European University Institute in Florence, gave an overview of the study to the members of the IMCO committee on Wednesday 24 September.
The causes of the restrictions on services identified in the study are very similar to those that the Commission has been citing for a long time: failure by Member States to comply with the rules, over-transposition, and various types of administrative barriers. However, these problems are bound to persist unless the Commission and the Member States take them seriously.
The proposals put forward by the Commission in its strategy - a 28th regime for businesses or automatic recognition of qualifications in particular - will meet with resistance from the Member States.
In the study, which will soon be revealed in full, the authors are expected to suggest that more attention be paid to implementing the rules, and to more effectively monitoring the barriers put in place in each Member State and seeking to find the least restrictive legislative frameworks possible.
Among the members of the IMCO committee, Dirk Gotink (EPP, Dutch) asked for a list of three priority issues to tackle the free movement of services easily and effectively.
Professor Bernard Hoekman believes that services for producers, which have a major impact on value chains, should be addressed as a priority. This is the case in transport, logistics and the posting of workers. The case of financial services is also crucial, in his view.
At a public hearing following the presentation of the study at the IMCO Committee on 24 September, several stakeholders echoed these observations. Almost unanimously, they conclude that Member States’ compliance with the current rules is a major issue that needs to be addressed. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)