Plan to boost legal powers to police the single market

Date: 06/11/1997

By Chris Johnstone

EU GOVERNMENTS face the prospect of swifter action to clamp down on breaches of single market rules under a plan being finalised by the European Commission.

This would introduce a new fast-track procedure for urgent and serious cases where governments stood accused of failing to implement internal market legislation or of introducing national rules which constituted unfair barriers to trade.

News of the move comes in a week when the French lorry drivers' strike has underlined the Commission's impotence in the face of disputes which tear a hole through the EU's treaty commitment to the free movement of goods.

The planned initiative would almost certainly not be applicable to this strike, given that the Commission has so far declared itself broadly satisfied with the French government's attempts to settle the dispute and minimise its impact.

The Commission could only take legal action if the government was deemed to have been negligent in this respect. But if Paris were to be found wanting, this would be just the sort of urgent case where the new procedure could be applied.

The proposals drawn up by Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti are due to be presented to the full Commission for approval on 19 November.

They will borrow heavily on failed Italian proposals to boost the Commission's single market powers ahead of the June Amsterdam summit. Rome called for the institution to be given competition-style powers to make decisions in internal market cases, with governments only allowed the right of an appeal to the European Court of Justice.

Although Italy's late bid for changes in the EU treaty was eventually sidelined, a Spanish demand that the Commission report back by the end of the year on ways to guarantee the smooth functioning of the single market was slipped into the summit's final conclusions.

Monti's fresh attempt to boost his powers are based on this demand. Under his proposal, a two-tier system for dealing with abuses of the single market would be created.

The Commission would rule immediately on the most serious cases, with governments only having a right of appeal, bringing the Commission's single market procedure into line with that used in competition cases.

"There would be guarantees written in that this would only be used for the most serious cases. They would have to have wide implications and affect more than one country," said a Commission source, who cited French farmers' barriers to imports of cheaper Spanish fruit as an example of an urgent case.

The present system would continue for the new category of second class, slow-stream cases. This involves a complicated procedure under which the Commission must first find that a government has a case to answer and then ask it to remove the barrier in question. If that fails, the Commission has to take its case to the European Court of Justice - a process which can take up to six years.

Governments have still to be briefed on the details of Monti's plan, but it is likely to be raised at the next meeting of EU internal market ministers on 27 November. "It all sounds good in principle, but we still have to see the details," said one national expert, who added: "The procedural changes that might need to be made to make these improvements might not be easy to negotiate."

Meanwhile, Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock confessed yesterday (5 November) to frustration at his inability to do more than press the French government to continue its efforts to settle the dispute and keep strategic points such as border crossings open.

But he underlined the difficulties he faced, saying that while he might consider proposing EU-wide action on the question of compensation for companies hit by this type of industrial action, any such move would almost certainly be resisted by member states.