Bartenstein to push through revised services directive

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 20/04/06

Austria's Employment and Economic Affairs Minister Martin Bartenstein will be pushing for consensus on the revised services directive on Saturday (22 April) at the informal Competitiveness Council in Graz.

The Council will be an important occasion for ministers to discuss the revised proposal with Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy and to express their political will to reach agreement as early as the end of May. This would allow the European Parliament to approve a final draft before the end of the year.

"This package already has the backing of the European Parliament, the Commission and EU leaders," said a spokesman for Bartenstein, who will chair the meeting.

"The missing link is the political agreement from competitiveness ministers and we are hoping to find the direction for that this weekend."

Bartenstein has already backed the revised Commission draft, which weakens the original proposal to open up entirely the EU services market, on the basis of agreement reached by MEPs in February.

But many new member states, who stood to benefit most from competition in the services markets and who opposed Parliament's compromise, have said that the new version does not meet their expectations.

The UK and the Netherlands also opposed weakening the draft, but are now understood to back the compromise proposal.

"The new member states will, of course, give their position but they must be aware that they cannot reach the stars. Pragmatically they know what is and what is not possible and they cannot untie the package," said the spokesman.

Austria has already shown its drive to push for an agreement on the dossier with a further two formal Competitiveness Councils planned for the end of May and the end of June.

Ministers kick off the Council with a dinner tonight, preceded by an 'electro-acoustic' concert.

Tomorrow (21 April) they will discuss how best to fund research programmes for the next EU budget round from 2007-13 under the Union's 7th framework programme. Enterprise and Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen will present a report for discussion called The opportunity of globalisation and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes will present a report on new developments in EU law on state aid.

Preview of the informal Competitiveness Council in Graz, 22 April 2006, where Ministers were expected to deliberate on the revised proposal for a Directive on Services in the Internal Market. The European Commission had presented a revised proposal on 4 April 2006, taking on board amendments suggested by the European Parliament at its first reading on 16 February 2006.

European Commission: PreLex: COM(2004)2: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Services in the Internal Market http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2002:002:FIN

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