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Snapshot 19 15 single market strategy

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We give an overview of the European Commission's Internal Market Strategy and look what it might mean for business.

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CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 1 The Internal Market is at the heart of the EU project. For many it represents the EU’s greatest economic achievement but for eurosceptics it represents needless meddling in our daily lives with regulation after regulation. From the infamous shape of cucumbers to the possible regulation of candles in time for Christmas – FTI looks at whether the Internal Market Strategy is losing its sparkle despite the Commission’s Single Market Strategy late October which aims to tackle its shortcomings. . High expectations The Single Market, referring to the free movement of goods and services without regulatory or other obstacles within the EU, is the EU’s success story and a cornerstone for the EU’s economic welfare. It has always been the engine for more economic integration and remains the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. However, many aspects of the Internal Market do not work well and are sometimes ill-adapted to new business models. Needless to say that the competition outside of Europe never sleeps, as a revitalized India under its new PM Narendra Modi shows. This is why the Single Market Strategy seeks to adapt the old rules to new business models, refine fundamental processes of the EU economy and nudge Members States towards further EU integration. The potential benefits are significant. While the Commission believes a more far-reaching implementation of the Services Directive will add an additional 1.8 percent to EU’s GDP, the Parliament, taking a more comprehensive approach, values an “upgraded” Single Market will bring an extra 4.4 per cent in GDP per year. Internal Market Strategy – Grasping the Opportunities Arne Koeppel is Head of Research and Jan Hueckmann is Consultant at FTI Consulting in Brussels December 2015
CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 2 Adapting old rules to new realities The sharing economy, or collaborative economy in Commission speak, has made headlines throughout Europe especially with protests in Paris against Uber, the ride-sharing app service, even turning violent. The Commission has reacted in the Single Market Strategy by announcing a European Agenda for the Collaborative Economy, which will include guidance on how existing EU law applies to these new business models. While the Commission did not announce new legislative initiatives, it did say it will assess whether any regulatory gaps exist. Clearly, the Commission is taking a cautious approach on the sharing economy, trying to find the middle ground between calls from established businesses to regulate the emerging sharing economy and calls from the new players and consumers to allow the new services to develop. However, it is unclear whether this approach is enough. At the national level, public authorities have responded in not only diverging, but also opposing ways to the new business models. In the UK, the ride-sharing app UberPop, which relies on non-professional drivers, was allowed to continue, but in France and Germany Uber had to shut it down. The Commission’s tactic might be more favourable for new services to develop than new legislation, but whether it is enough to further integrate the EU’s internal market, the overarching aim of the new strategy, is another question. Further integration will have to come from other, more ambitious initiatives. Geo-blocking Geo-blocking, a form of geographically-based discrimination to buy or sell goods and services online, has become a controversial issue in Europe. While in the offline world it is unthinkable that a customer is refused a service or product because of his residence, it has become a reality online. Building on the Digital Single Market Strategy, the Commission spells out how it wants to tackle un-justified geo- blocking in the e-commerce sector in its legislative proposal in mid- 2016: to identify and ban specific forms of residence-based discrimination not grounded on objective and verifiable factors. It also announced new transparency tools to allow consumers to detect when they are being discriminated against. The Commission has to perform a careful balancing act between fighting discrimination of consumers and preserving entrepreneurial freedom. On the one hand supporting growth in major new technologies and on the other hand ensuring consumer confidence in the Single Market. For Vice-President Andrus Ansip it is also a question of credibility after he said earlier this year that he hates geo-blocking. The ongoing public consultation on geo-blocking might help the Commission to strike this balance. With the powerful and well-connected retail sector weighing in with concerns that contractual freedom could be at risk, it will not be an easy task to eliminat “unjustified” geo-blocking. I hate geo-blocking. Fine-tuning the EU economy To make the EU economy more innovative and competitive, the Commmission seeks to address inefficiencies in key underlying processes, such as standardisation, public procurement and protecting intellectual property. Modernising the standards system The Commission claims that the European standardization system is not well adapted to the transforming economy with its new business models, global value chains and the growing role of services. To ensure that the standardization system is able to meet these challenges and remain relevant in the future, the Commission plans a Joint Initiative on Standardisation which will bring together the Commission, industry, and European Standardisation Organisations with the aim to speed up and better prioritise standard setting. The joint initiative builds to some extent on the ICT Priority plan announced in the Digital Single Market Strategy. The plan seeks to identify those areas which are crucial for the tech industry in terms of standardisation and regain the initiative in setting ICT standards worldwide. An important challenge will be to make a new standardization system work within a global system. Digital Europe for instance argues that the current system works well and that any reform must avoid adopting a top down approach that could lead to protectionism. Also the ongoing TTIP negotiations will have to be taken into account as one of its aims is to reduce barriers to trade caused by diverging standard systems. Public procurement Every year public authorities spend around 19% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies. This makes public procurement an extremely important part of the economy and a significant expense of tax money. The Commission wants to tackle the lack of compliance, bad quality of services and regular overrunning of costs and time. The focus of the strategy lies on enabling better data collection and analysis to detect and prevent irregularities. Concrete actions include the creation of a contract register, the development of data analytics tools and improving the procurement remedies system under the Remedies Directives to ensure a better review of procurement decisions. The Commission also wants first instance review bodies to better cooperate. Finally the Commission will provide assistance and advice to Member States on the legality of the procurement aspects of the project. Member States can request an opinion on the compatibility of the tender procedure with EU rules. Modernising the IPR framework To get the Unitary Patent System to a good start, the Commission will address possible uncertainties and frictions with the existing national patent systems. A novelty is the possible creation of a new unitary title for supplementary protection certificates (SPC). These titles can extend the protection of patents for products that are subject to long regulatory approvals namely medical and crop protection products. The Commission hopes that a unitary SPC title would increase transparency and certainty on the protection of medicines. The Commission also explores an SPC manufacturing waiver in order to stimulate the European generic and biosimilar medicine industries to manufacture in Europe. Andrus Ansip, Vice-President Digital Single Market
CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 3 In order to improve the fight against counterfeit goods the EU wants to improve the IPR enforcement framework. A ‘follow the money’ approach should deprive large scale infringers of their revenue flow. The strategy does not propose a major change of the IPR framework and the idea of an SPC waiver for SMEs was ultimately dropped. The Commission will need its political capital for the highly controversial reform of the copyright system which lies at the heart of the Digital Single Market Strategy. Nudging Europe towards further integration Services now make up the greatest part of the European economy and in particular in view of online services, the internal market offers a huge potential. However, the gaping differences between Member States’ regulatory regimes result in fragmentation and often services are still restricted to their home country. The Commission focuses on identifying concrete reform needs in Member States to improve access and exercise of regulated professions focusing on priority sectors such as architects, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents etc. The Commission plans to support Member States by setting out an analytical framework for reviewing professional services regulations and make notification in the construction and business services sectors easier with a legislative initiative on harmonised notification forms. A real innovation is the planned service passport which Member States issue upon request and that demonstrate that the requirements of the Member State are met. In the services area the Commission aims to make important changes without new legislation. However, legislative or not it will be interesting to see whether the Member States are happy with the Commission making concrete suggestions about their legislation. Single market for goods The principle of mutual recognition lies at the heart of the Single Market as it allows goods that are lawfully marketed in one Member State to circulate and be sold freely in the rest of the EU. However, the Commission has identified two obstacles: inadequate application of mutual recognition because of national practices and the increased presence of non-compliant products. The Commission plans to present an EU-wide action plan to raise awareness of the mutual recognition principle with specific actions for the sectors of construction, foodstuffs, food supplements and fertilisers in which problems occur most often. The Commission will also revise the Mutual Recognition Regulation to address administrative fragmentation and streamline the documentation proving that a product has been marketed lawfully in a Member State. To that end businesses will be allowed to issue self- declaration that the product has been marketed legally in another Member State. Compliance and enforcement The EU praises itself of having the highest standards of consumer protection and environmental protection in the world. These standards are however often undermined by a lack of compliance which in turn lowers consumer’s confidence in the Single Market. The Commission therefore plans to step up its efforts to ensure compliance of national legislation. Actions range from streamlining the monitoring system to proposing regulation on a market information tool that enables the collection of information from selected market players. The Commission also wants to intensify compliance checks and promote closer cross-border cooperation among enforcement authorities to increase deterrence. Helping SMEs For a long time the EU has been following the mantra of supporting SMEs and the EU has attempted in many ways to boost the uptake of new businesses. The success so far is limited and only very few companies could establish themselves in modern growth sectors. This time actions relating to SMEs are quite bold, not limited to new funding priorities but aiming to tackle more structural obstacles. They include an action plan to simplify the VAT system, making requirements more manageable, an update of company rules on cross border mergers and complementing them with procedures for cross-border divisions, a modernisation of insolvency law in order to “accommodate failure” for businesses and finally rules on attracting entrepreneurs. However, the most ambitious measure, a 3-years safe harbour for start-ups, allowing them to operate in other EU countries under selected home country requirements, was ultimately dropped. It seems as if the Commission became afraid of its own ambition. The way forward In its Single Market Strategy, the Commission wants to “upgrade” the internal market through “concrete and ambitious” measures. While most action points are concrete, their level of ambition is questionable. Soft-law initiatives outweigh hard-law ones and some of the most zealous ideas were dropped from the final proposal. Although this is in line with the Commission’s better regulation principle, it is unclear how they will effectively address the concerns raised. It is also unclear how it will persuade Member States to abandon their resistance to further integration, often a key reason for the underlying problems. At the moment, most Member States do not share a sense of urgency that pushes them to further harmonise. This illustrates the current dilemma of the EU: Many issues could only be tackled through more integration but in times when the UK is contemplating to leave the Single Market there is simply not enough support for such measures. Clearly, the Commission cannot succeed on its own. It will need the help of others, especially the more reform-oriented Member States. Fortunately, the Dutch made the Single Market a key priority and announced for their upcoming Presidency that they will start “naming and shaming” the laggards in Europe, thus supporting the Commission’s soft-law approach. Business also plays a crucial role. It will have to hold the Commission accountable to its goal of upgrading the Single Market and also needs to hold back Member States in their efforts to undermine the Commission plans. This means being present and visible in Brussels and the national capitals. It will also mean that businesses will have to start their outreach early to counter the informal influence Member States have in the Brussel’s decision-making process. Time is, as so often, running out. With most initiatives announced for 2016, businesses will have to identify their priorities quickly and act upon them, seeking allies within and outside their sectors. They will have to be ready for 2016, which will determine much of where the Juncker Commission will be heading for the rest of its mandate.
CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 4 Arne Koeppel +32 2 289 0939 Arne.Koeppel@fticonsulting.com Jan Hueckmann +32 2 289 0425 Jan.Hueckmann@fticonsulting.com About FTI Consulting FTI Consulting Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organisations protect and enhance enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. FTI Consulting professionals, who are located in all major business centres throughout the world, work closely with clients to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges in areas such as investigations, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, reputation management and restructuring. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting Inc., its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals, members or employees. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ www.fticonsulting.com ©2015 FTI Consulting Inc. All rights reserved. Single Market Timeline Legislative actions 2016 • Legislative action to address targeted regulatory barriers in key businesses services and construction services • Legislative initiative to introduce a “services passport” for key sectors of the economy such as construction and business services • Legislative action to prevent discrimination against consumers based on nationality or country of residence • Legislative proposal modelled on the successful features of the current notification procedure under Directive (EU) 2015/1535 for services currently not covered by that Directive 2017 • Legislative initiative on business insolvency, including early restructuring and second chance • Revision of Mutual Recognition Regulation Non-legislative actions 2016 • Guidance on how the EU law applies to the collaborative economy business models • VAT Action Plan • Start-up initiative • Guidance on reform needs for Member States in regulation of professions • Analytical framework for Member States to use when reviewing or proposing additional regulation of professions • Joint initiative on standardisation • Dedicated guidance on service standardisation • Proposal for market information tools allowing the Commission to collect information from selected market players • Action Plan to increase awareness of the mutual recognition principle • Initiatives to modernise the intellectual property rights framework, including a review of the IP enforcement framework (2016-2017) • Comprehensive set of actions to further enhance efforts to keep non-compliant products from the EU market, including a possible legislative initiative (2016-2017) 2017 • Communication setting out best practices to facilitate retail establishment and reduce operational restrictions • Public procurement: voluntary ex ante assessment mechanism for large infrastructure projects • Initiatives for better governance of public procurement through the establishment of contract registers, improved data collection and a networking of review bodies (2017-2018) • Data analytics tool for monitoring Single Market legislation

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Snapshot 19 15 single market strategy

  • 1. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 1 The Internal Market is at the heart of the EU project. For many it represents the EU’s greatest economic achievement but for eurosceptics it represents needless meddling in our daily lives with regulation after regulation. From the infamous shape of cucumbers to the possible regulation of candles in time for Christmas – FTI looks at whether the Internal Market Strategy is losing its sparkle despite the Commission’s Single Market Strategy late October which aims to tackle its shortcomings. . High expectations The Single Market, referring to the free movement of goods and services without regulatory or other obstacles within the EU, is the EU’s success story and a cornerstone for the EU’s economic welfare. It has always been the engine for more economic integration and remains the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. However, many aspects of the Internal Market do not work well and are sometimes ill-adapted to new business models. Needless to say that the competition outside of Europe never sleeps, as a revitalized India under its new PM Narendra Modi shows. This is why the Single Market Strategy seeks to adapt the old rules to new business models, refine fundamental processes of the EU economy and nudge Members States towards further EU integration. The potential benefits are significant. While the Commission believes a more far-reaching implementation of the Services Directive will add an additional 1.8 percent to EU’s GDP, the Parliament, taking a more comprehensive approach, values an “upgraded” Single Market will bring an extra 4.4 per cent in GDP per year. Internal Market Strategy – Grasping the Opportunities Arne Koeppel is Head of Research and Jan Hueckmann is Consultant at FTI Consulting in Brussels December 2015
  • 2. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 2 Adapting old rules to new realities The sharing economy, or collaborative economy in Commission speak, has made headlines throughout Europe especially with protests in Paris against Uber, the ride-sharing app service, even turning violent. The Commission has reacted in the Single Market Strategy by announcing a European Agenda for the Collaborative Economy, which will include guidance on how existing EU law applies to these new business models. While the Commission did not announce new legislative initiatives, it did say it will assess whether any regulatory gaps exist. Clearly, the Commission is taking a cautious approach on the sharing economy, trying to find the middle ground between calls from established businesses to regulate the emerging sharing economy and calls from the new players and consumers to allow the new services to develop. However, it is unclear whether this approach is enough. At the national level, public authorities have responded in not only diverging, but also opposing ways to the new business models. In the UK, the ride-sharing app UberPop, which relies on non-professional drivers, was allowed to continue, but in France and Germany Uber had to shut it down. The Commission’s tactic might be more favourable for new services to develop than new legislation, but whether it is enough to further integrate the EU’s internal market, the overarching aim of the new strategy, is another question. Further integration will have to come from other, more ambitious initiatives. Geo-blocking Geo-blocking, a form of geographically-based discrimination to buy or sell goods and services online, has become a controversial issue in Europe. While in the offline world it is unthinkable that a customer is refused a service or product because of his residence, it has become a reality online. Building on the Digital Single Market Strategy, the Commission spells out how it wants to tackle un-justified geo- blocking in the e-commerce sector in its legislative proposal in mid- 2016: to identify and ban specific forms of residence-based discrimination not grounded on objective and verifiable factors. It also announced new transparency tools to allow consumers to detect when they are being discriminated against. The Commission has to perform a careful balancing act between fighting discrimination of consumers and preserving entrepreneurial freedom. On the one hand supporting growth in major new technologies and on the other hand ensuring consumer confidence in the Single Market. For Vice-President Andrus Ansip it is also a question of credibility after he said earlier this year that he hates geo-blocking. The ongoing public consultation on geo-blocking might help the Commission to strike this balance. With the powerful and well-connected retail sector weighing in with concerns that contractual freedom could be at risk, it will not be an easy task to eliminat “unjustified” geo-blocking. I hate geo-blocking. Fine-tuning the EU economy To make the EU economy more innovative and competitive, the Commmission seeks to address inefficiencies in key underlying processes, such as standardisation, public procurement and protecting intellectual property. Modernising the standards system The Commission claims that the European standardization system is not well adapted to the transforming economy with its new business models, global value chains and the growing role of services. To ensure that the standardization system is able to meet these challenges and remain relevant in the future, the Commission plans a Joint Initiative on Standardisation which will bring together the Commission, industry, and European Standardisation Organisations with the aim to speed up and better prioritise standard setting. The joint initiative builds to some extent on the ICT Priority plan announced in the Digital Single Market Strategy. The plan seeks to identify those areas which are crucial for the tech industry in terms of standardisation and regain the initiative in setting ICT standards worldwide. An important challenge will be to make a new standardization system work within a global system. Digital Europe for instance argues that the current system works well and that any reform must avoid adopting a top down approach that could lead to protectionism. Also the ongoing TTIP negotiations will have to be taken into account as one of its aims is to reduce barriers to trade caused by diverging standard systems. Public procurement Every year public authorities spend around 19% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies. This makes public procurement an extremely important part of the economy and a significant expense of tax money. The Commission wants to tackle the lack of compliance, bad quality of services and regular overrunning of costs and time. The focus of the strategy lies on enabling better data collection and analysis to detect and prevent irregularities. Concrete actions include the creation of a contract register, the development of data analytics tools and improving the procurement remedies system under the Remedies Directives to ensure a better review of procurement decisions. The Commission also wants first instance review bodies to better cooperate. Finally the Commission will provide assistance and advice to Member States on the legality of the procurement aspects of the project. Member States can request an opinion on the compatibility of the tender procedure with EU rules. Modernising the IPR framework To get the Unitary Patent System to a good start, the Commission will address possible uncertainties and frictions with the existing national patent systems. A novelty is the possible creation of a new unitary title for supplementary protection certificates (SPC). These titles can extend the protection of patents for products that are subject to long regulatory approvals namely medical and crop protection products. The Commission hopes that a unitary SPC title would increase transparency and certainty on the protection of medicines. The Commission also explores an SPC manufacturing waiver in order to stimulate the European generic and biosimilar medicine industries to manufacture in Europe. Andrus Ansip, Vice-President Digital Single Market
  • 3. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 3 In order to improve the fight against counterfeit goods the EU wants to improve the IPR enforcement framework. A ‘follow the money’ approach should deprive large scale infringers of their revenue flow. The strategy does not propose a major change of the IPR framework and the idea of an SPC waiver for SMEs was ultimately dropped. The Commission will need its political capital for the highly controversial reform of the copyright system which lies at the heart of the Digital Single Market Strategy. Nudging Europe towards further integration Services now make up the greatest part of the European economy and in particular in view of online services, the internal market offers a huge potential. However, the gaping differences between Member States’ regulatory regimes result in fragmentation and often services are still restricted to their home country. The Commission focuses on identifying concrete reform needs in Member States to improve access and exercise of regulated professions focusing on priority sectors such as architects, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents etc. The Commission plans to support Member States by setting out an analytical framework for reviewing professional services regulations and make notification in the construction and business services sectors easier with a legislative initiative on harmonised notification forms. A real innovation is the planned service passport which Member States issue upon request and that demonstrate that the requirements of the Member State are met. In the services area the Commission aims to make important changes without new legislation. However, legislative or not it will be interesting to see whether the Member States are happy with the Commission making concrete suggestions about their legislation. Single market for goods The principle of mutual recognition lies at the heart of the Single Market as it allows goods that are lawfully marketed in one Member State to circulate and be sold freely in the rest of the EU. However, the Commission has identified two obstacles: inadequate application of mutual recognition because of national practices and the increased presence of non-compliant products. The Commission plans to present an EU-wide action plan to raise awareness of the mutual recognition principle with specific actions for the sectors of construction, foodstuffs, food supplements and fertilisers in which problems occur most often. The Commission will also revise the Mutual Recognition Regulation to address administrative fragmentation and streamline the documentation proving that a product has been marketed lawfully in a Member State. To that end businesses will be allowed to issue self- declaration that the product has been marketed legally in another Member State. Compliance and enforcement The EU praises itself of having the highest standards of consumer protection and environmental protection in the world. These standards are however often undermined by a lack of compliance which in turn lowers consumer’s confidence in the Single Market. The Commission therefore plans to step up its efforts to ensure compliance of national legislation. Actions range from streamlining the monitoring system to proposing regulation on a market information tool that enables the collection of information from selected market players. The Commission also wants to intensify compliance checks and promote closer cross-border cooperation among enforcement authorities to increase deterrence. Helping SMEs For a long time the EU has been following the mantra of supporting SMEs and the EU has attempted in many ways to boost the uptake of new businesses. The success so far is limited and only very few companies could establish themselves in modern growth sectors. This time actions relating to SMEs are quite bold, not limited to new funding priorities but aiming to tackle more structural obstacles. They include an action plan to simplify the VAT system, making requirements more manageable, an update of company rules on cross border mergers and complementing them with procedures for cross-border divisions, a modernisation of insolvency law in order to “accommodate failure” for businesses and finally rules on attracting entrepreneurs. However, the most ambitious measure, a 3-years safe harbour for start-ups, allowing them to operate in other EU countries under selected home country requirements, was ultimately dropped. It seems as if the Commission became afraid of its own ambition. The way forward In its Single Market Strategy, the Commission wants to “upgrade” the internal market through “concrete and ambitious” measures. While most action points are concrete, their level of ambition is questionable. Soft-law initiatives outweigh hard-law ones and some of the most zealous ideas were dropped from the final proposal. Although this is in line with the Commission’s better regulation principle, it is unclear how they will effectively address the concerns raised. It is also unclear how it will persuade Member States to abandon their resistance to further integration, often a key reason for the underlying problems. At the moment, most Member States do not share a sense of urgency that pushes them to further harmonise. This illustrates the current dilemma of the EU: Many issues could only be tackled through more integration but in times when the UK is contemplating to leave the Single Market there is simply not enough support for such measures. Clearly, the Commission cannot succeed on its own. It will need the help of others, especially the more reform-oriented Member States. Fortunately, the Dutch made the Single Market a key priority and announced for their upcoming Presidency that they will start “naming and shaming” the laggards in Europe, thus supporting the Commission’s soft-law approach. Business also plays a crucial role. It will have to hold the Commission accountable to its goal of upgrading the Single Market and also needs to hold back Member States in their efforts to undermine the Commission plans. This means being present and visible in Brussels and the national capitals. It will also mean that businesses will have to start their outreach early to counter the informal influence Member States have in the Brussel’s decision-making process. Time is, as so often, running out. With most initiatives announced for 2016, businesses will have to identify their priorities quickly and act upon them, seeking allies within and outside their sectors. They will have to be ready for 2016, which will determine much of where the Juncker Commission will be heading for the rest of its mandate.
  • 4. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ FTI Consulting Inc. • 4 Arne Koeppel +32 2 289 0939 Arne.Koeppel@fticonsulting.com Jan Hueckmann +32 2 289 0425 Jan.Hueckmann@fticonsulting.com About FTI Consulting FTI Consulting Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organisations protect and enhance enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. FTI Consulting professionals, who are located in all major business centres throughout the world, work closely with clients to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges in areas such as investigations, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, reputation management and restructuring. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting Inc., its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals, members or employees. CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™ www.fticonsulting.com ©2015 FTI Consulting Inc. All rights reserved. Single Market Timeline Legislative actions 2016 • Legislative action to address targeted regulatory barriers in key businesses services and construction services • Legislative initiative to introduce a “services passport” for key sectors of the economy such as construction and business services • Legislative action to prevent discrimination against consumers based on nationality or country of residence • Legislative proposal modelled on the successful features of the current notification procedure under Directive (EU) 2015/1535 for services currently not covered by that Directive 2017 • Legislative initiative on business insolvency, including early restructuring and second chance • Revision of Mutual Recognition Regulation Non-legislative actions 2016 • Guidance on how the EU law applies to the collaborative economy business models • VAT Action Plan • Start-up initiative • Guidance on reform needs for Member States in regulation of professions • Analytical framework for Member States to use when reviewing or proposing additional regulation of professions • Joint initiative on standardisation • Dedicated guidance on service standardisation • Proposal for market information tools allowing the Commission to collect information from selected market players • Action Plan to increase awareness of the mutual recognition principle • Initiatives to modernise the intellectual property rights framework, including a review of the IP enforcement framework (2016-2017) • Comprehensive set of actions to further enhance efforts to keep non-compliant products from the EU market, including a possible legislative initiative (2016-2017) 2017 • Communication setting out best practices to facilitate retail establishment and reduce operational restrictions • Public procurement: voluntary ex ante assessment mechanism for large infrastructure projects • Initiatives for better governance of public procurement through the establishment of contract registers, improved data collection and a networking of review bodies (2017-2018) • Data analytics tool for monitoring Single Market legislation