THE SERVICE PACKAGE:
Measures that will simplify the process of decision making for companies and professionals to provide services to customers. Is a potential issue to develop in the single market and launch the European companies to the global economy.
Rather than amending existing EU rules in the area of services, the Commission focuses on ensuring they are applied better
The four concrete initiatives adopted by the Commission today are:
-A new European Services e-card
- A proportionality assessment of national rules on professional services
- Guidance for national reforms in regulation of professions
- Improved notification of draft national laws on services
INTERNAL MARKET INFORMATION SYSTEM:
The Exchange of information nowadays is necessary for all different countries to be able to implement the single market rules. Cooperation is essential specially when there are rights to move around the European Union, because we may need information about different areas as work, study, trade…
PROFESSIONALS QUALIFICATION DIRECTIVE:
Population of Member States normally access to a concrete profession through a qualification
that they obtained in their national country. This was an obstacle for the principles of the
Single Market of Services, because people couldn´t exercise their jobs in foreign countries.
That´s why the European Union created some rules, in order to recognise professional
qualifications between the EU Member States. This is known as the free movement of
professionals. The institution which developed this system is the Professional Qualification
Directive.
Nowadays, we can use the procedure of the European Professional Card, which allows some
professionals as nurses or real state agents, to work where they are needed.
To regulate this system, the European Commission has created a transparency and mutual
evaluation exercise.
COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY:
It´s also called ¨shared economy¨. In the last years, the use of collaborative services has been
very extended across Europe, like sharing houses or car journeys. This new economy provides
a bunch of new opportunities to both citizens and entrepreneurs. But, it needs a regulation, so
the European Commission is currently working in it, to encourage the development of new
services and to guarantee the protection of consumers. These rules are developed by the
Communication of European Agenda, and consumers and companies have to be aware of
these policies, in order to do a proper use of the collaborative economy.
In the last year, the European Commission has stablished stakeholder workshops in different
European cities. The aim of these workshops is to provide a deeper understanding of the
collaborative economy and hear the business community of each country. This helps the EU to
measure the impact of this new economy in the market and the business models.
RETAIL AND WHOLESALE SERVICES:
These services are very important for the EU economy, because they produce the 11.1% of the
European GDP, providing around 33 million jobs. In 2013, the EU created the European Retail
Action Plan, to protect and to improve the performance of this sector. The European
Commission created in 2015 the High Level Group on Retail Competitiveness, where it
publishes different recommendations about the retail policy.
There are some practices that assume obstacles for this sector, like the unfair trading practices
in the food supply chain. In this case, the Commission has had to take measures, creating a
Communication and a Green Paper, for public consultation.
SERVICE STANDARDS:
A service standard define the requirements that should be complied by a service provider and what a customer can expect. The some requirements that are specify are definitions, indicators of quality…
The Standards help service providers and their customers, making safer the transactions, improving communication, reducing costs and increasing confidence in the businesses
The development of standards is limited, only 2% of all EU standards, even services account for 70% of EU economy. National standards may fragment the Single Market for services
The Services Direcective encourages the development of European standards to improve information and the quality of service provision. Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 provides a legal basis for their development.
European Commission puts a number of measures that will prioritise and incentivise the development of voluntary European service standards.
European Committee for Standardization (CEN) identified 6 possible areas, and 3 of them:
erformance measurement, service contracts and service procurement started to develop in 2016.