Brussels, 14/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - With a view to the Spring Summit, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Frits Bolkestein presented a report on Wednesday, in Strasbourg, from the Commission's services. The report mainly stresses that only six initiatives out of the sixteen presented for updating internal market strategy in April 2002 reached the stage intended (adoption by the Council, Commission proposal, etc.). To cite but a few, the dossiers on the Community Patent, pension funds and savings taxation underwent considerable delays (see also EUROPE of 8 January, p.9). Furthermore, according to this document, several other measures that should result in June 2003, such as reducing the level of State aid, are delayed to a worrying extent. Given this situation, Frits Bolkestein recognised that "some of the necessary decisions are difficult". He nonetheless added that "without them, Europe will miss the opportunity to become the most competitive knowledge economy in the world and we shall all suffer from this". The Commissioner "therefore hopes that 2003 will bring a spirit of compromise in negotiation (…) so that we may offer our citizens the internal market and the Europe that they deserve".