Citizens are asked to help close single market gaps

Date: 27/02/1997

By Chris Johnstone

EU CITIZENS are being offered the chance to contribute to the completion of the single market by 1999 by adding their own pointers on where the European Commission should focus its attention.

Businesses, trade unions and consumer lobbies will be asked for their input next Friday (7 March) as the Commission makes a push to close the remaining gaps in the internal market in time for the launch of the single currency on 1 January 1999.

Officials have already begun work on an action plan setting out the strategy for meeting this deadline which will be presented to EU leaders at their next summit in Amsterdam in June.

Their endorsement will be sought to underline the high priority being given to the initiative by Commission President Jacques Santer - and to try to ensure that governments deliver on their promises.

"This is a high priority area," said one Commission official. "The basic political idea is to re-dynamise the single market."

The failure of governments to implement fully and on time the rules agreed in Brussels has been one of the biggest bugbears of the single market process since it came into being just over four years ago.

Part of the action plan will seek to fill the gaps highlighted by the Commission last October in its first ever survey of the internal market's successes and failures.

The study suggested that the internal market had created between 300,000 and 900,000 new jobs, but underlined the need for action to close the remaining loopholes. Problem areas included public procurement, taxation, company law and financial services.

Overall, steps to liberalise the passage of goods and capital have been much more successful than measures on the free movement of people or services.

Governments' efforts to enforce single market regulations have been patchy across the board, prompting the October report to talk about the need for "changes in the administrative and even judicial culture in each member state".

This could include audits of enforcement in member states, faster infringement procedures and a greater role for national courts in policing community rules.

The action plan should set deadlines for legislation in priority areas in an attempt to separate the 'wheat' from the 'chaff', with the possibility that target dates for some laws may be set beyond 1999.

Next week's public consultation exercise should help officials add new legislative measures to the action plan to make it far more than an exercise to paper over the cracks.

Rapidly evolving areas such as biotechnology and information technology will clearly require a hands-on approach up to and beyond 1999, while some legislative measures in other fields might be withdrawn as no longer relevant.

The action plan will dovetail with Santer's commitment to combat unemployment in the Union. The Commission president is anxious to inject new impetus into his 'confidence pact' for jobs, which has made little progress since it was launched a year ago in the face of opposition to some of its key proposals from member states.

Meanwhile, Santer will today (27 February) attempt to convince sceptics that the pact is alive and well when he addresses the plenary session of the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) in Brussels, by pointing to the commitment to tackle unemployment made by EU leaders at their recent summit in Dublin.