Single Market governance package of March 2020

KEY MESSAGES

For the European Commission, the EU Council, and the European Parliament:

• The EU needs a strong Single Market reform agenda, also as a core element to the European Recovery Plan implementation after the COVID-19 crisis. The Single Market governance package of 10 March 2020 is a welcome step that addresses many implementation and enforcement shortcomings in the EU, but this is only a part of the answer.

For the European Commission:

• BusinessEurope urges the Commission to propose concrete measures for each identified barrier in the Single Market barriers report and identify which initiatives in the Commission's annual work programmes tackle the specific barriers.

For the European Commission and the EU member states:

• Capacity building and resources for implementation and enforcement of the EU rules should be boosted both at the EU and national levels with a focus on the Single Market functioning, even more so after the COVID-19 crisis.
• Transparency and barrier-prevention measures should be firmly applied as a norm, making full use of the frameworks for notification of national rules and their proportionality assessment.
• The task of establishing a single comprehensive information access point for businesses and full digitalisation of procedures necessary to start, develop and grow business across borders should be finally completed by the end of this Commission’s mandate.
• A prominent role should be given to stakeholders as we stand ready to contribute with the necessary evidence base for the work of the Single Market Enforcement Taskforce (SMET)