BRUSSELS — EU countries will only be able to move ahead with joining up their national economies and smoothing the movement of goods and workers if it doesn’t mean more bureaucratic burdens for industry, Germany is warning the bloc’s leadership.
The new position paper circulated by Berlin and obtained by POLITICO comes as presidents and prime ministers from across the EU prepare to meet in Belgium on Thursday to discuss turning around its sluggish economic figures. European Council President António Costa, who has called the meeting in the rural Alden Biesen Castle, has said he wants to use it to agree to “deepen, harmonize and further integrate our Single Market.”
The German analysis cites International Monetary Fund figures that find current barriers to trade within the EU’s common market are equivalent to tariffs of 44 percent for goods and as much as 110 percent for services. Fixing that, according to the paper, “will require specific, bold and in some cases uncomfortable steps,” and will require countries to accept restricting “national scope for action in the interest of the common market.”
However, Berlin warns that that will only be possible if it doesn’t mean giving up additional power to bureaucrats intent on piling burdensome regulations on businesses, which are already struggling to compete globally. “This includes new restraint on legislative activity to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy, as well as resolute bureaucracy reduction which up-holds policy goals and relevant standards.”
On the list of specific measures being put forward by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right coalition government are new, simplified rules for companies offering services across different EU countries and allowing workers to move more readily around the bloc by recognizing qualifications. Targeted support for smaller businesses and simplified regulations on goods are also key to breaking down barriers, the paper states.
Costa’s Alden Biesen summit comes after EU countries were forced to reckon with the prospect of hard-hitting new tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump last month as he ramped up efforts to take control of Greenland from Denmark. Since then, capitals have been pushing for new measures to ensure the bloc can leverage its economy — which accounts for almost a fifth of global output — to better advocate for itself on the world stage.
In comments to POLITICO, the EU’s economy and productivity commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said the bloc’s executive had already brought forward red tape-cutting measures that will save €15 billion in administrative costs since the beginning of its mandate a year ago.
“But this is just a start: Simple and fit-for-purpose legislation must become part of our culture in the future, and more than half of our proposals put forward will have a strong simplification dimension,”Dombrovskis said.
Slash regulation if you want Single Market, Germany tells EU
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