Following the Commission's 2012 Communication on Better Governance for the Single Market, IMCO prepared a legislative own-initiative report on Governance of the Single Market (Rapporteur: Andreas Schwab (EPP)) which was adopted in plenary on 7 February 2013, putting forward recommendations on how the Single Market could be further improved and asking that a Single Market pillar be put in place within the European Semester for economic policy coordination. In addition, the report looked into the Single Market aspects of the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) which was presented by the Commission in November 2012 in order to set the course for the following European Semester, and in particular on the report on the state of the Single Market integration 2013 that formed part of the AGS. IMCO also decided to look into this subject annually, within each European Semester cycle.
In line with that, an own-initiative report on Governance of the Single Market within the European Semester was then prepared in IMCO, and adopted in plenary on 25 February 2014 (Rapporteur: Sergio Gaetano Cofferati (S&D)). It reiterated the need for a Single Market governance cycle to constitute a substantial pillar of the European Semester, and made a number of suggestions with regard to the key sectors with the highest growth potential (services, financial services, energy, transport, and digital markets) and to the existing Single Market instruments - including the Online Single Market Scoreboard).
To support IMCO's future work in this areas, two studies have been requested via the Parliament's research units: the first on theCost of non-Europe, updating whenever possible the Cecchini report that was published in 1988 and focusing on such areas as consumer acquis, public procurement, services and construction materials, and the second on Indicators for measuring performance of the Single Market,evaluating the existing tools and reflecting on the possible improvements. Both studies are expected by September 2014.
Source : © European Union, 2014 - EP