Source: European Parliament
The Commission will present at the end of May 2025 an ambitious horizontal Single Market Strategy. The strategy will build on the Commission’s extensive dialogue with stakeholders and the input received through a call for evidence.
The strategy will provide an overarching vision for the Single Market and announce concrete actions on the Single Market for services and goods as well as the horizontal functioning of the Single Market.
The Single Market for services will be one of the main focus areas of the strategy. Services withing the Single Market account for 70% of EU Gross Domestic Product and employment.
Yet, the Single Market for services performs below its full potential. Intra-EU trade in services is less than one third of that in goods, and not higher than with third countries.
Despite an initial reduction of regulatory barriers following the transposition of the Services Directive[1], around 60% of the barriers experienced by companies 20 years ago are still of the same type today.
Member States restrict access to more than 5700 regulated services, equivalent to one fifth of the labour force. Stakeholders call for a new impulse to reduce regulatory and administrative barriers to the free movement of services in the Single Market, such as sector-specific initiatives to complement horizontal services policies, lighter authorisation regimes and less or simplified declaration obligations as well as improved online information and less burdensome administrative procedures.
Especially given the current context of trade tensions, the growth potential of the Single Market needs to be unleashed. The European Single Market is a joint endeavour, unlocking its full potential requires action at both, EU and Member States level.
- [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32006L0123