Single Market at 30: it’s time for barrier-free trade and investment in the EU

"Thirty years of the Single Market is a significant milestone to celebrate, but there are also matters of concerns due to persisting barriers and even rising fragmentation in the EU", BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson said at the Single Market Forum (SIMFO) conference in Stockholm today. There is a mass of incoming EU legislation, he stressed, which creates disproportionate additional regulatory burdens for businesses. Therefore, companies cannot scale up to other countries without facing a wide variety of barriers. "Especially SMEs are struggling with the growing number of compliance obligations and the costs that are associated with them", he added. The event also had the participation of Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market; Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise; Anna Cavazzini, Chair of the European Parliament Internal Market Committee; Johan Forssell, Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade; amongst others.