Viikon kysymys on, että mihin suuntaan EU:n sisämarkkinoita pitäisi kehittää? Mikä toimii? Mikä ei toimi? Mitä pitäisi muuttaa?

Alla materiaalia viikon kysymykseen.  

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Tässä lyhyesti se, mitä eilen lupasin videoblogissa. Työstimme siis sisämarkkinoiden tulevaisuutta koskevaa strategiaa uusiksi Tuomaksen kirjoittaman pohjan avulla. Tässä on aiheeseen pari linkkiä.

Ensin linkki Komission analyysiin siitä mitä Euroopan sisämarkkinat ovat tällä hetkellä ja mitä pitäisi tehdä. Sitten on linkki parlamentin raportöörin ranskalaisen MEP Jacques Toubonin aihetta koskevaan raporttiluonnokseen. Merkinnän lopussa on oma näkemykseni sisämarkkinoiden tulevaisuuteen.

Toinen polttava aihe oli EU:n kanta Viron parin viikon takaiseen patsasselkkaukseen. Tässä on parlamentin päätöslauselma aiheesta.

Työeläkeyhtiö Varman porukka.

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 The single market has been a true European success story…

A. whereas the Single Market has been a success story without precedence in the European context delivering wider choice and lower prices to consumers, creating a competitive and dynamic environment for business and enabling exchange of ideas and experience among European cultures,

B. whereas the Single Market and its four building blocks, the free movement of good, services, people and capital has been a decisive step forward in European integration,

C. whereas the Single Market has contributed to economic prosperity and job creation and has benefited consumers,

D. whereas the Single Market has become an internationally recognized symbol of European nations working together in a spirit of mutual respect and trust while respecting the rule of law,

E. whereas the Euro has brought transparency, efficiency and ease of access to the Single Market,

F. whereas the Single market is the most efficient tool to address the challenges of globalisation through enabling a more competitive and dynamic European economy,

G. whereas the Single market is based on the idea of a responsible market economy,

… yet it is still under construction.

H. whereas an improvement in the functioning of the Single Market is still needed,

I. whereas there is still need to reduce administrative burden on business, to promote the single market to consumers, to complete opening up of markets in many sectors, especially in network industries,

J. whereas there is still overt and hidden protectionist attitudes in the Member States’ administrations,

K. whereas the Single Market is never ready and is constantly evolving in face of events like globalisation, emergence of knowledge economy, increased energy dependence, climate change, ageing population and enlargement of the European union.

New and forward looking initiatives emerge.

1. Welcomes the Commission’s active role and forward-looking vision of the Single Market;

2. Supports the Commission’s initiative to shift the emphasis in the Single Market exercise from removing barriers to make markets work better and to deliver to consumers and business to its fullest potential;

3. Stresses that a good Single Market policy is fundamental to the stimulation of innovation through increased competition and to a business-friendly environment;

4. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to reduce the administrative burdens for businesses and urges that further such efforts be made;

5. Holds the view that new policy initiatives should be more driven by an analysis on the impact they have on various markets, economic sectors and environment;

Challenges remain …

6. Regrets that the four freedoms are still violated daily on the Single Market;

7. Regrets that Member States do not feel sufficient ownership of the Single Market project on a practical level;

8. Regrets to read and hear declarations by Member States and other instances praising the Single Market and the four freedoms and to see that real action and decisions by the same instances too often reflect protectionist attitudes;

9. Regrets that the principle of mutual recognition, which besides harmonisation is an essential tool for the free movement of goods in the Single Market, remains almost unused due to non-existing support and effort by Member States to implement it; further regrets that some Member States set limitations to the free movement of labour and services;

10. Regrets that especially network markets such as the energy, rail transport, postal services and telecommunication industries remain strongholds of nationalistic industrial policies;

11. Recognises that there is still a long way to go to have full consumer confidence in the Single Market due to lack of information and to uncertainty about the consumer protection level offered across the Single Market;

12. Recognises that businesses still hesitate to engage into cross-border trade due to red tape and the uncertainty that the country of destination offers the business environment promised by the Single Market;

13. Recognises that in a Single Market delivering quality of life environmental and consumer protection concerns need to be taken into account;

14. Recognises that the European Union is facing an increasingly competitive global environment;

… but these need to be faced by targeted action and policy measures.

15. Calls for a promotional campaign by the Commission and the Member States to promote the opportunities, possibilities and choices offered by the Single Market to consumers and to businesses.

16. Emphasises that in order for such campaigns or any other measure to improve the working of the Single Market the ownership of the Member States of the Single Market is a pre-condition; therefore urges the Member States to turn their speeches about the importance of the Single Market into action; furthermore recommends the national parliaments to take a more active role in an earlier stage in the formulation of Single Market legislation;

17. Calls for strenghtening consumer confidence in cross-border purchases and strengthening their trust in common rules on consumer protection; welcomes in this context the Commission’s Green Paper on the review of the consumer acquis; furthermore calls for Member States to ensure that consumer protection regulation is enforced properly;

18. Stresses that harmonization and mutual recognition are complementary elements with their respective advantages in building the Single Market and that a right balance in using these methods needs to be found; welcomes the Commission’s proposal within the goods package for a legislation defining procedures to implement the principle of mutual recognition in its full potential;

19. Welcomes a set of recent Commission legislative proposals aimed at perfecting the Single Market with tools such as the ones in the goods package; furthermore stresses the importance that public contracts be awarded in a transparent way and in this context welcomes the commission proposal on enforcement of public procurement regulation; calls on the Commission to assure that the access for SME’s to public contracts is ensured;

20. Calls for the Commission to continue its efforts in aiming at better regulation – and thus a less bureaucratic environment for business and innovation to thrive; holds the view that co-regulation and self-regulation should be considered as alternatives to legislative regulation in appropriate cases.

21. Urges Member States to improve transposition and implementation of new EU legislation; while notes the improvement in national transposition, welcomes the new aim of the European Spring Summit to gradually reduce the transposition deficit target to 1%;

22. Holds member states responsible for most infringements of Single Market rules; therefore calls for the Commission to allocate more resources to the processing of infringement cases of the Internal Market rules in order to reduce the legal uncertainty and loss of time of businesses and consumers and thus to allow them to reap full benefit of the Single Market in a timely fashion;

23. Urges Member States to realise the importance of a functioning Single Market to retain competitive advantage; emphasises the importance of the Single Market regulation to be in line with global competitive realities; calls on the Commission, when framing internal policies, systematically to evaluate and take into consideration similar policies implemented by the EU’s major partners;

24. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.