Only 20% of services in the EU are provided cross-border, even though they account for 70% of GDP and employment in EU countries, the European Court of Auditors lamented on Wednesday 25 March in a new report.
And “60% of barriers in the EU’s single market from more than 20 years ago persist”, writes the Court, which condemns “insufficient” action by the EU to remove these obstacles.
At a time when the Commission has promised a ‘roadmap’ on the single market, ‘One Europe, One Market’, and the EU27 have recently committed themselves to removing as many barriers as possible by March 2027, the Court criticised the institution for its lack of clear goals and strategic ambition “while noting that EU countries themselves bear their share of responsibility for undermining the integration of the single market for services through regulatory or administrative measures”.
Services, ranging from construction and transport to architecture, information technology and employment services, account for around 70% of GDP in EU countries.
At the heart of the problem, says the Court, relying on Enrico Letta’s 2024 report, “lie significant differences in national authorisation and certification requirements, together with diverging national regulations, burdensome administrative procedures, and restrictions on sending workers abroad”.
According to the Court, 60% of the barriers to the services market identified in 2002 persisted in 2023.
The Commission has taken measures since then, but until 2025 its efforts “lacked not just strategic focus but also a procedure for properly targeting barriers with the greatest potential impact”.
“The situation has not changed much since the Commission adopted its 2006 directive” (on the provision of cross-border services).
Companies still do not have full access to the information they need to use services in another Member State. The ‘European Semester’ budget process has not encouraged significant regulatory reform, and few countries have used post-Covid-19 recovery funds to reform the services sectors. The Commission has also been ineffective in enforcing the rules.
“As the Commission had no more recent comprehensive data”, the Court examined the evolution of barriers since the Commission’s 2021 mapping exercise in six Member States (Germany, Estonia, France, Italy, Lithuania and Hungary).
In Germany, for example, while the regulatory framework applicable to architects and lawyers had been relaxed, 12 specialist professions that had not been regulated since 2004 had once again become subject to regulation in 2020.
The German authorities had identified negative consequences of deregulation.
Furthermore, in Lithuania, the national authorities’ efforts to reduce administrative and compliance burdens were not successful because of limited support by businesses, especially where barrier removal could increase competition in the relevant markets, for example in the tourist guide sector.
The Commission updated its reform recommendations for professional services, but no new legislative proposals were put forward. Nor has it specified how the barriers should be lowered or removed, and the assessment “did not trigger initiatives for review or reform of the barriers in question in any of the six member states”.
And “so far, there is no analysis of which services sectors are particularly negatively affected by regulation”, laments the Court.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/lc6 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)