Single market: report 1995

In adopting the report by Mr Carlo SECCHI (PPE, I) on the single market in 1995, Parliament laid emphasis on the measures to be taken with a view to a better functioning of the single market. It called for the creation of a separate service within the Commission charged with improving the coordination of the various policies at the heart of the single market. Noting with concern that in 1995 the Council had still not made any great progress towards adopting certain important legislative measures, and that the measures adopted by the Council in various sectors have not yet been transposed at national level Parliament considered that, among the most serious problems impeding the completion and smooth functioning of the single market the following are of particular importance: - checks on persons at the internal frontiers have not been fully abolished; - strengthening citizens' rights and providing access to the law in cases where the provisions governing the single market have been infringed are difficult and expensive; - the principle of mutual recognition (notably of qualifications) is not fully respected; - progress towards tax harmonization remains disappointing; - divergent application of Community provisions under the Member States' legal systems. The EP regretted that in a number of sensitive sectors the initiatives taken by the Commission have failed to ensure that Community provisions are properly transposed, notably in crucial sectors such as public procurement, insurance, intellectual property and company law, and that in other sectors, such as pharmaceutical products, price control measures laid down at national level continue to distort the market. The EP also considered that a properly functioning single market is a vital precondition for the successful launch of monetary union. It emphasized that industrial circles had urgently called for the opening at Community level of a complaints office charged with helping industry. As regards the relation between the single market and future enlargements, the EP took the view that the single market should not be seen as a protectionist system and commended the efforts made by the Commission to link the functioning of the single market to the rules on international trade. Finally on the institutional level, the EP considered that the IGC should improve the efficiency of the instruments available for the smooth functioning of the single market (large-scale simplification of the rules governing it) and stressed the need to move away from the unanimity principle in areas related to the single market. �