Legal Aspects in Establishing the Internal Market for services. Research Papers in Law, 6/2007

Introduction. The internal market for services is one of the objectives set by the founding fathers of the EC back in 1957. It is only in the last ten-fifteen years, however, that this aspect of the internal market has seriously attracted the attention of the EC legislature and judiciary.1 With the exception of some sector-specific directives dating back in the late ‘80s, it is only with the deregulation of network industries, the development of electronic communications and the spread of financial services, in the ‘90s that substantial bits of legislation got adopted in the field of services. Similarly, the European Court of Justice (ECJ, the Court) left the principles established in Van Binsbergen back in 1973, hibernate for a long time before fully applying them in Säger and constantly thereafter.2 Ever since, the Court’s case law in this field has grown so important that it has become the compulsory starting point for any study concerning the (horizontal) regulation of the internal market in services. The limits inherent to negative integration and to the casuistic approach pursued by judiciary decisions have prompted the need for a general legislative text to be adopted for services in the internal market. This text, however, hotly debated both at the political and at the legal level, has ended up in little more than a complex restatement of the Court’s case law. It may be, however, that this ‘little more’ is not that little. In view of the ever expanding application of the Treaty rules on services, promoted by the ECJ (para. 1),3 the Directive certainly appears to be a limited regulatory attempt (para. 2). This, however, does not mean that the Directive is a toothless, or useless regulatory instrument (conclusion: para. 3).

Authorisations under EU internal market rules. Research Paper in Law, 05/2013

From the Introduction. That the requirement of a prior authorisation, as a precondition for the exercise of any economic activity, may restrict the freedom of establishment and the free provision of services is a truism. If an authorisation is required in the Member State where establishment is to take place or the service is to be offered (host Member State), then operators who lack such authorisation are in no right to proceed to the projected activity. Therefore, as soon as it is being accepted that the EU internal market rules are not only about discriminatory measures, but also cover mere restrictions, it comes as no surprise that national authorisation systems come to be scrutinized under the Internal Market rules.

Mutual recognition in goods and services: an economic perspective. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 2/2002

Mutual recognition is a remarkable innovation facilitating economic intercourse across borders. In the EU's internal goods market it has been helpful in tackling or avoiding the remaining obstacles, namely, regulatory barriers between Member States. However, there is a curious paradox. Despite the almost universal acclaim of the great merits of mutual recognition the principle has, in and by itself, contributed only modestly to the actual realisation of free movement in the single market. It is also surprising that economists have not or hardly underpinned their widespread appreciation for the principle by providing rigorous analysis which could substantiate the case for mutual recognition for policy makers. Business in Europe has shown a sense of disenc hantment with the principle because of the many costs and uncertainties in its application in actual practice. The purpose of the present paper is to provide the economic and strategic arguments for employing mutual recognition much more systematically in the single market for goods and services. The strategic and the "welfare" gains are analysed and adetailed exposition of the fairly high information , transaction and compliance costs is provided. The information costs derive from the fact that mutual recognition remains a distant abstraction for day-to-day business life. Understandably, verifying the "equivalence" of objectives of health and safety between Member States is perceived as difficult and uncertain. This sentiment is exacerbated by the complications of interpreting the equivalence of "effects". In actual practice, these abstractions are expected to override clear and specific national product or services rules, which local inspectors or traders may find problematic without guidance. The paper enumerates several other costs including, inter alia, the absence of sectoral rule books and the next-to-prohibitive costs of monitoring of the application of the principle. The basic problems in applying mutual recognition in the entire array of services are inspected, showing why the principle can only be used in a limited number of services markets and even there it may contribute only modestly to genuine free movement and competitive exposure. A special section is devoted to a range of practical illustrations of the difficulties business experiences when relying on mutual recognition. Finally, the corollary of mutual recognition - regulatory competition - is discussed in terms of a cost/benefits analysis compared to what is often said to be the alternative , that is "harmonisation" , in EU parlance the "new approach" to approximation. The conclusion is that the manifold benefits of mutual recognition for Europe are too great to allow the present ambiguities to continue. The Union needs much more pro-active approaches to reduce the costs of mutual recognition as well as permanent monitoring structures for its application to services (analogous to those already successfully functioning in goods markets). Above all, what is required is a "mutual recognition culture" so that the EU can better enjoy the fruits of its own regulatory ingenuity.

Services in European Policies. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 16/2007

This paper’s objective is twofold. Firstly, it presents the case for services-related policies in the current European Union (EU). The services economy is frequently misunderstood, due to old and new myths that stem from the classic economic tradition. These myths obscure the role of the services economy in economic development. Nonetheless, the European services economy faces specific problems, such as lack of market integration, which amplifies arguments that justify policy actions toward services within a framework where market and systemic failures do apply. Secondly, this paper focuses on existing services-policies at the EU level, paying special attention to the internal market for services policies and to the complementary role of primarily non-regulatory policies. Within a comprehensive policy framework, each individual policy will have a higher impact, improved implementation and easier acceptance. Synergies among services-related policies should be promoted; the internal market policies, enterprise and industrial policies, competition policies and regional policies may take the lead in such a framework. Since the Lisbon Strategy, services have begun to gain recognition in EU policy agendas. This paper attempts to increase their visibility and to highlight their crucial role in European integration and in economic growth and social welfare.