Quote of the Week: The nice thing about standards is that there are so
many of them to choose from - Andres S. Tannenbaum
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ESBA WEEKLY of Friday 20 April 2001 - VOL 3 - N° 20
Headlines of WEEK 16:
- SINGLE MARKET: Single market strategy review confirms lack of progress
- CONSUMER PROTECTION: Further resistance to 'fair trade' plans
- UPCOMING EVENTS
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EU / SINGLE MARKET
Brussels 17/04/2001: Single market review confirms lack of progress
The second review of the internal market strategy, issued by the European
Commission this week, confirms previous indications (review of the
Internal Market Strategy of last year, results of the Stockholm Summit,
recent speech by Romano Prodi for the European Parliament,.) that progress
in improving the performance of the internal market, which is at the heart
of the Lisbon strategy, has been rather disappointing and that there
exists a gap between rhetoric and reality. Only 20 out of 36 scheduled
actions and 8 out 12 priority actions are expected to be completed by June
2001, and only three Member States met the target (1,5%) of reducing their
transposition deficits.
Aside assessing progress since last year, the review builds on the
strategy published in November 1999 (designed to develop the Internal
Market over the next five years) to set the direction of the internal
market policy, by targeting specific policies and actions, for the coming
18 months. Due to the lack of progress so far, the priority target actions
for the coming period are mainly leftovers from last year, such as: more
competition and liberalisation of transport, procurement and utilities
sectors, and completion of an integrated market for capital and financial
services. The review also focuses on the need to improve the quality of
the regulatory frameworks.
More detailed information on the internal market strategy, progress and
plans:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/update/strategy/index.htm
The complete 2001 review can be downloaded at (copy/paste full link):
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/update/strategy/com198_en
.pdf
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EU / CONSUMER PROTECTION
Brussels 20/04/2001: Further resistance to 'fair trade' plans
As reported already in January 2001 (see ESBA WEEKLY - Vol 3 - N 8) the
Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, David Byrne, is preparing a radical
policy paper for protecting EU citizens against unfair business practices
(including measures to ensure businesses do not use practices to evade the
law and mislead the consumer via means of industry codes of conduct and
the concept of co-regulation). The plans were to present the paper during
the informal meeting of EU consumer ministers of next week. However, due
to major concerns raised by the industry since the beginning, and more
recently some major objections to the plans raised within the European
Commission itself, it is rather likely that Byrne's plans will first go
through an orientation debate within the Commission itself and a more wide
consultation process with industry and other parties.
In the mean time the European Commission has presented a number of studies
(completed for the Commission) which deal with different aspects of the
issue of 'fair trade' (copy/paste full link):
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/policy/developments/fair_comm_prac
t/fair_comm_pract_index_en.html
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Brussels 23&24/04/2001: E-marketplaces: enterprise policy, competition and
standardization; Theme: E-commerce, SMEs & Standardization
Info: http://www.europa.eu.int/Commission/enterprise/ict/e-marketplace.htm
Noordwijk aan Zee (NL) 10&11/05/2001: Concerted action seminar on Business
Failure; Theme: Business failure, Entrepreneurship, Good practices. Info:
http://www.ez.nl/businessfailure/index.htm
Brussels 29/05/2001: Make it simple!; Theme: Enterprise Policy, SMEs,
regulations. Info: http://www.unice.org
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The ESBA Weekly is now sent to an increasing amount of persons with a
direct interest in SMEs.
This bulletin is made in cooperation with LOGOS (http://www.logos-eu.com).
