European Council confirms competitiveness policy

The Conclusions of the Competitiveness Council 10-11 December do not contain any significantly new commitments from the Member States, but confirm, on a number of specific of issues, orientations proposed by the Barroso II Commission. Your blogger has read those documents for you and selected a few useful passages concerning simplification and the reduction of the regulatory burden:

• Simplification and flexibilisation of procurement procedures : The package provides for a simplification and flexibilisation of the procedural regime set by the current rules, which date back to 2004. To this end, it contains measures to make procurement easier and administratively less burdensome and to create flexibility for public authorities enabling better procurement outcomes. Promotion of electronic procurement as a more user-friendly feature of procurement procedures is throughout the package a cornerstone of the simplification process.
• Review of accounting requirements for companies: "The Council took note of the progress made on the review and simplification of the accounting rules applicable to EU companies. The key objectives of the review include the reduction of administrative burden and the application of simplified accounting rules for SMEs" (...);
• Single Market Act II: "The Council adopted conclusions on the second set of new priority proposals presented by the Commission on 3 October 2012 under the "Single Market Act II." These proposals will supplement the first set of measures of the Single Market Act I package for deepening and reinforcing the single market in order to create economic growth and jobs. Among other elements, the conclusions highlight the necessity for the single market to rest upon a strong economic and social basis and the importance for the SMA II actions to address the concerns of citizens and businesses.
• "A stronger European industry for growth and economic recovery:" The Council invites the Commission to take forward further initiatives together with Member States, businesses and other stakeholders to reduce regulatory burden and boost the high innovation and productivity growth potential of EU industry, including SMEs; emphasises that competitiveness proofing has a prominent role to play to ensure the capacity to innovate, the consistency of rules and to prevent unnecessary red tape and compliance costs; The cost of crossing the borders in the Single Market, by having to comply with different national legislation, should also be taken into account; (...) Industrial Policy has to take care that no unnecessary burdens are created by new EU regulation in various policy areas (which are listed as SMEs, cohesion, trade, research. and innovation, environmental, climate, energy, transport, ICT, consumer, competition and state aid policies).