Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-05-25-Speech-1-329-000"
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"en.20160525.23.1-329-000"2
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"Madam President, the single market has been a significant achievement. It’s more integrated than India’s market and that’s not bad considering we have got 28 countries. But although tariffs have gone, non—tariff barriers (NTBs) still exist. We need a proper single market that delivers for consumers and for all businesses. At the moment the single market works for big businesses. They have the economies of scale and the wealth to get around barriers to trade that small companies do not – they just give up.
As I’ve gone around my constituency from Stratford to Stoke, small businesses tell me that they often find it much easier to trade with Canada or the US than they do with France or Germany. Artificial barriers and red tape block the free movement of goods and services. So they give up and we lose that trade, and then they watch big companies come in and take over that trade. This fuels a feeling that Europe is just for big business and not for the little guys.
At the same time, consumers lose out. They don’t get a wider choice of products or lower prices through economies of scale that the single market should give them. We know the problem and we’ve been trying to solve it for years, but we haven’t looked at it from the perspective of international trade. It is sometimes forgotten in this house that trading in another EU country is still international trade and it involves different rules, different regulations and different languages.
This is what this report is about. It is trying to identify technical barriers to trade within the internal market. Now the term ‘non—tariff barriers’ is well—known in international trade, but it’s fair to say that we had quite a lot of discussion about what it is and what it isn’t within this house, and the definition was tricky to agree on. But one thing that isn’t a non—tariff barrier is workers and social rights. Let’s be clear about that. These apply to everyone in a country and they are non—discriminatory. Nor is it an NTB when governments legislate for legitimate public policy reasons, but their actions should be proportionate. So it is not a non—tariff barrier if an action is proportionate, non—discriminatory and serves a legitimate public policy objective. But protectionism isn’t fair; it kills jobs, it kills growth and it kills competitiveness and it penalises consumers. It exists in a variety of sectors within Europe, and we would challenge third countries if they employed such methods.
Now I believe in competition, and I believe in different economic and regulatory models in EU countries is a good thing as it allows countries to have competitive advantages. This isn’t about harmonization, but where there are problems we’ve got to highlight them, and we found problems in a number of sectors, including retail, construction and professional services, to name a few, and we need to address them. Lack of mutual recognition of testing on goods or professional qualifications is a key example. Do taps really need to be tested 28 times to be sold in 28 different EU countries? Why are British kit cars with type approvals not allowed to be sold in Belgium, for example? Why is does a UK hairdresser with 30 years’ experience have to train for 4 years to be a hairdresser in Germany? It makes no sense. Why does an Austrian ski instructor have to retrain to be an instructor in France? It makes no sense. Why does an online betting company have to have an offline establishment to trade in another country? Why are there fees on global income for supermarkets in Eastern Europe which only hit foreign companies. These are Europeans blocking other Europeans; there’s no solidarity here at all.
Now we don’t need new legislation. We need a change in mindset in national ministries and we need better and clearer enforcement of single market rules by the Commission. We need more collaboration between Member States and we’ve identified these gaps in the report with regard to goods, but I think it’s in services where there are real problems. The notification regime under the Services Directive is a prime example of where Member States have not matched their commitments. The single market should be a partnership between countries and their governments should commit with their actions.
As we’ve seen with this report, Parliament is fully behind this objective, and I hope the Commission is too. It won’t be easy but it’s in all our long—term interests, and I hope this report will provide a new impetus to tear down barriers and create a free single market that delivers for businesses – both big and small – for consumers and for workers."@en1
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