Europe’s Single Market looks impressive on paper. But what does it look like for a business trying to operate across borders?
That was the question at the heart of a Renew Europe seminar, where representatives from Vinted and Bolt laid out the everyday barriers they face: fragmented licensing rules, patchy payment systems and, in some cases, outright protectionism.
The message was that Europe does not always need more rules. It needs to make the rules we already have work across the Single Market.
ALDE Party President, Svenja Hahn MEP (FDP, DE), cut to the chase:
“We need to stop complaining about US or Chinese power plays and instead fix Europe’s self-inflicted wounds: our internal trade barriers and the broken promises of the single market.”
Sandro Gozi (FR) pointed to another problem: “goldplating,” the habit of national administrations adding extra requirements on top of EU law.
“It’s a lose-lose. Businesses drown in red tape. Europe gets blamed for overregulation, when the real culprits are overzealous national bureaucracies. The rule should be simple: one EU rule in, 27 national rules out.”
Antonios Nestoras of the European Policy for Innovation Council (EPIC) raised a simple but important point: we know what the Single Market is worth today, but we don’t know how much more it could be worth if it worked properly.
That missing number matters. If governments could see exactly how much growth Europe is losing because of national barriers, they would have a much stronger reason to remove them.
Nestoras suggested looking back to the Cecchini report, which helped make the case for the Single European Act by putting a value on the benefits of a more integrated European market. Europe needs something similar today: a clear figure showing what we could gain from a Single Market that actually works.
He also shared the latest figures on the implementation of the Draghi report. Read the findings here and the implementation stats here.
Spoiler: it’s bleak.