Rise in national red tape ‘threat’ to single market

Date: 04/12/1997

By Rory Watson

EU LEADERS will be warned next week that the single market is being threatened by the constant increase in national technical standards.

The number of national measures notified to the European Commission has almost doubled in just four years, climbing from 385 in 1993 to a projected 670 this year. After a careful analysis, the Commission has concluded that 277 of them, or more than one-third, could be in contravention of European law.

Concerned that the trend risks undermining the single market by erecting new barriers to trade between member states, the Commission will present a report to EU leaders at their summit in Luxembourg next week highlighting the danger.

The sharp increase in national measures is in stark contrast to the steep decline in new proposals for EU-wide rules, with the Commission tabling just seven legislative initiatives this year. This is even less than the modest list of 16 proposals set out in its 1997 work programme at the end of last year.

"It is clear that the less the Union legislates, the more member states do. Our message is twofold. EU governments must implement Community legislation and in an understandable way. In addition, national legislators themselves must be inspired by the same principles as we are of better law-making and subsidiarity," said a senior EU official.

At next week's summit, the Commission will remind national governments and MEPs of their shared responsibility for improving Union legislation.

The Commission's report points out that the search for compromise in the Council of Ministers can frequently make the final version of a proposal more complex than the original, while European Parliament amendments do not necessarily improve simplicity and readability.

With the imminent increase in the Parliament's law-making powers under the Amsterdam Treaty, there is a very real possibility that legislation may become even more complex if MEPs and EU governments have to use intricate phrasing to reconcile their differences.

Under Union legislation dating back to 1983, member states must notify the Commission of any national technical standards they introduce in areas where harmonised Union rules on goods do not exist.

Recent examples have covered electronic goods, road signs and construction materials for motorways. Last week, Union governments agreed to extend the procedure to the growth industry of information society services such as telebanking.

The current Commission has made tidying up and improving Euro-laws one of its main priorities since Jacques Santer became president in January 1995. It firmly believes better legislation will improve citizens' perception of the EU, help business competitiveness and ease the process of enlargement.

After sifting through various proposals already on the table, the Commission has withdrawn around 30 which it considers are no longer necessary or are out of date. More than 100 others suffered a similar fate in the previous two years.

Before the end of this year, the Commission will recommend that a number of existing EU measures should be codified, a procedure which could see the repeal of a further 61 legislative acts. In parallel, other pieces of legislation are being consolidated to make them more user-friendly.

The seven draft directives presented so far this year account for just 2% of the formal proposals tabled by the Commission during 1997, with a further 23 involving revisions to existing legislation. The vast bulk of them (183) covered international relations.

In addition, as part of its commitment to wider consultation with outside interests, the Commission has issued six White and Green Papers, seven working documents, 116 reports and 103 non-binding communications over the past 11 months.

European Commission warns that the Single Market is being threatened by an increase in national technical standards.