02 May 2017

Commission takes new steps to enhance compliance and practical functioning of the EU Single Market

The package of measures will make it easier for people and companies to manage their paperwork online in their home country or when working, living or doing business in another EU country and it will help ensure that commonly agreed EU rules are respected.

The three concrete initiatives adopted by the Commission today are: 

1: A Single Digital Gateway:In the future, people and companies will have easier access, through a single digital entry point, to high quality information, online administrative procedures and assistance services. Any procedure currently available online for domestic users will be accessible to users from other Member States and in one additional EU language. 13 key administrative procedures will have to be made available online, including requests for a birth certificate, to register a car, start a business or register for social security benefits.According to the "once-only" principle, important data already collected by national authorities will only need to be submitted once and should then be made available to be reused in the most important cross-border procedures at the request of the user. 

2: A Single Market Information Tool (SMIT):

Single Market rights, for people as well as companies, can only be fully exercised if the commonly agreed rules are fit for purpose and correctly applied throughout Europe. To ensure this, timely access to comprehensive, reliable, and accurate market information is crucial. The Commission can already request information directly from companies in the field of competition policy. The Single Market Information Tool will allow the Commission, in targeted cases, to source defined and readily available data (such as, for example, cost structure, pricing policy or product volumes sold) in cases of serious difficulties with the application of EU Single Market legislation. 

This could prove valuable, for example, to collect information on suspected geo-blocking practices, to corroborate information on public tenders, or to obtain data on the pricing and underlying costs of cross-border parcel delivery. Such requests would be a measure of last resort and the information would be handled subject to strict confidentiality requirements. 

3: A SOLVIT Action Plan:

The Commission will build on the success of SOLVIT, a free of charge service which provides rapid and pragmatic solutions to people and companies all over Europe when they experience difficulties with public administrations while moving or doing business cross-border in the EU. The Action Plan aims to increase the use of SOLVIT by making sure that more citizens and businesses can easily access it and by improving data collection so that evidence from SOLVIT cases can be used to improve the functioning of the Single Market. 

Full press release

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