Brussels, 25/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 24 November, BusinessEurope - the Confederation of European Businesses - presented seven recommendations to ensure effective transposition of the directive on services in the internal market. This presentation took place during the submission of a specific study a year before application of the European rules. Participants illustrated the importance of highlighting the stakes at play in the services directive, but also the opportunities - particularly cross-border service provision. Philippe de Buck, Director General of BusinessEurope, declared: “We are perhaps counting more on member states in these difficult economic times” to transpose European legislation efficiently and comprehensively.
The seven BusinessEurope recommendations are: - urge national governments to increase their efforts to ensure a high quality, uniform and timely transposition; - speed up national screenings which should lead to the simplification and modernisation of existing national rules - BusinessEurope identified difficulties encountered in Slovakia; - equip and staff point(s) of single contact adequately to allow for - even with remote access - provision of the relevant information and completion of formalities. According to the study, Ireland is expected to be the only member state, in contravention of the provisions of the directive, to include points of single contact that only provide information services; - develop electronic procedures and their interoperability; and promote the use of the English language as well as the national language; create a website in all EU languages with all information on the national transposition; - consult with representative stakeholders as much as possible and launch national information campaigns.
Anna-Lena Bohm, the managing director of the Swedish Uniguide communication services company, warned that “80% of SMEs working in the services sector do not have any idea about the services directive”. She said that this constituted the “biggest” obstacle to integrating rules into the domestic law of member states. Marie-José Palasz, at the head of the French mission on the transposition of the directive referred to the “constant need to communicate” because a large number of French firms are still talking about the Bolkestein directive, regulated professions still want to continue to be protected and most service providers are not seeing the opportunities in clearing obstacles at national borders. The Commission representative mentioned the possibility of setting up an information portal. (M.B./transl.rh)