8. 7. 87 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 180/1 
II 
(Preparatory Acts) 
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion on 'making a success of the Single Act: a new frontier for Europe' 
(87/C 180/01) 
On 4 March 1987 the Commission requested the Committee to deliver an Opinion on the 
abovementioned document. 
The 'New Frontier' sub-Committee (Chairman: Mr W. Poeton), set up by the plenary session 
to prepare the work on the subject, drew up a draft Opinion on 30 April 1987 on the basis 
of the report by the rapporteur, Mr Burnel. 
At its 246th plenary session (meeting of 13 May 1987) the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted in a roll-call vote by 113 votes to 25, with 27 abstentions, the following Opinion: 
1. Preliminary comment 3. And now? 
The Committee has decided to adopt an overall 
approach in this initial Opinion and reserves the right 
to follow this up with specific Opinions. The Commit­
tee has already taken the initiative of preparing a num­
ber of proposals in the social area. Other topics, such 
as the financing of the Community, the future of the 
common agricultural policy and the reform of the struc­
tural funds, will be studied in depth given their crucial 
importance. 
2. The background 
1970: A market without frontiers was to be established 
under the terms of the Treaty of Rome. This has not 
been done. 
1987: Signing of the Single Act, which promises that a 
market without frontiers will be established ... by 1992. 
The document represents the lowest common denomi­
nator. 17 years have gone by, and although they have 
not been completely wasted, the objective (announced 
30 years ago) has not been achieved within the deadline 
initially set. This harmful delay demonstrates clearly 
the inadequacy — and even absence — of political 
will on the part of the Member States to enter into 
commitments towards each other on a permanent and 
coherent basis. How is the man in the street to become 
enthusiastic about Europe if nothing changes? 3.1. The Committee notes that the Single Act and the 
Commission communication outlining the minimum 
conditions for translating into deeds (i.e. into everyday 
terms) the hopes embodied in the Single Act are two 
texts that form a whole, the communication represent­
ing the practical implementation of the Single Act. 
3.2. The Member States, having signed the Single 
Act and having had it ratified in their Parliaments 
(reflecting the wishes of their citizens), are now commit­
ted to resolutely building a genuine economic and social 
Community. This in turn requires a wholehearted com­
mitment on the part of their leaders at the highest 
level and on the part of all those with a position of 
responsibility in economic and social life. 
3.3. The Committee endorses the Commission's 
initiative of bringing together in a global strategy both 
the objectives assigned to the Community under the 
Single Act and the means to be employed in completing 
the internal market. 
The Committee feels that the economic growth which 
will come about thanks to the size of the single market 
should take account of the need for social progress and, 
in keeping with true Community solidarity, should 
benefit everyone and thereby help to create a people's 
Europe in harmonious fashion. 
No C 180/2 Official Journal of the European Communities 8. 7. 87 
4. Building the Europe of the new frontier 
4.1. The Committee will support the steps taken by 
the Commission to make a success of the Single Act 
and build a new-frontier Europe within the time limit 
laid down. This will mean that the potential of the 
European market can be fully tapped and that Com­
munity firms will be able to compete on the inter­
national market. 
4.2. With this in mind, the Committee lends its sup­
port to the Commission's proposal to opt for mutual 
recognition of standards and rules, as opposed to the 
perfectionist's ideal of common standards, as a means 
of speeding up the establishment of free movement for 
persons, services, industrial and agricultural products 
and capital. The Committee asks that the Community 
'patrimony' and the safety and health objectives laid 
down in Community framework Directives be taken 
into account in this harmonization. 
4.3. However, the elimination of all barriers, 
although a pressing need, will not be enough to sustain 
the cooperative growth stategy for more employment, 
unless completion of the large internal market is 
accompanied by the development of a genuine common 
economic and social area with the following features: 
— greater convergence of Member States' economic 
policies so as to optimize the results of their efforts, 
— the will to keep the social dialogue going in accord­
ance with new Treaty Article 118 B (laid down in 
the Single Act) and to develop Community social 
legislation on the basis of new Treaty Article 118 
A (laid down in the Single Act), 
— strengthening of the European Monetary System 
with a view to expanding the private use of the 
ECU and promoting it as a European currency, 
— an aggressive research and technological develop­
ment policy to safeguard the future of companies in 
the Community and prevent a Community scientific 
and intellectual brain drain, 
— a more vigorous Community trade policy. 
The Member States, having agreed in the Single Act to 
assign these objectives to the Community, must provide 
the Community with the requisite financial and insti­
tutional means for their realization. 
5. Providing the means necessary to meet the chal­
lenges facing the Community 
5.1. Sufficient, stable and guaranteed resources to financing problems. The Committee has a few com­
ments to make already at this stage. 
5.1.2. Setting out from the general objectives which 
have been fixed, the first step is to establish the pro­
grammes required to resolve the problems and meet 
the needs — in an order of priority determined by 
negotiation. The budget resources should be decided in 
the light of these programmes. Basing programmes on 
a pre-determined budget would entail the risk of not 
meeting priority needs properly and could be economi­
cally and socially inefficient. 
5.1.3. The Committee believes that the, financing 
system must be equitable and must provide the Com­
munity with guaranteed stable and adequate own 
resources to achieve the objective set. All financing 
must be based on easy-to-understand criteria which 
are objective, verifiable and involve solidarity; this is 
incompatible with the concept of balancing budget con­
tributions and receipts. Transparency must be the rule 
in financial matters and financial administration must 
be rigorous. 
5.2. A rapid and effective Community decision-making 
process 
5.2.1. The Committee welcomes the agreement 
reached in the Single Act to extend qualified majority 
voting in specific cases to give the European Parliament 
a cooperative role in the legislative process and to 
formally recognize the existence of the European 
Council as an institution. 
5.2.2. The Committee feels that this is a step for­
ward, albeit too timid in certain respects. It nevertheless 
hopes that this will lead to an appropriate strengthening 
of the Community decision-making process. The Com­
mittee trusts that in future each institution will exercise 
fully the powers vested in it. The Committee itself 
intends to use the powers assigned to it in the insti­
tutional framework to, in particular, ensure the contri­
bution of the economic and social interest groups to 
the success of the Single Act. 
6. Translating speeches about solidarity into everyday 
realities 
Making a success of the Single Act means building a 
Europe united by a pact of practical solidarity between 
the Member States, so that greater prosperity will 
strengthen the Community's internal cohesion and thus 
its social dimension. 
6.1. Internal cohesion 
5.1.1. The Commission communication devotes a 
lengthy and politically and technically weighty chapter 6.1.1. Opening up the markets of the new Member 
States will require measures designed (a) to enable these 
8. 7. 87 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 180/3 
States to maintain and increase their active presence in 
the Community-wide market, and (b) to reinforce the 
social and economic cohesion of the Community. 
6.1.2. Reformed structural funds which are better 
coordinated and provided with adequate resources must 
make possible the financing of genuine regional devel­
opment programmes, based on the Commission's five 
objectives and covering a period long enough to enable 
significant results to be achieved. 
6.1.3. The Committee recognizes that the inclusion 
in the Single Act of a title on the environment underlines 
the importance of this policy for the development of 
the Community. But it is to be feared that application 
of the principle of subsidiarity will mean a limitation 
of the Community's scope for action in this sphere. 
6.1.4. The Committee joins the Commission in 
stressing the importance of a European transport infra­
structure policy whose development goes hand in hand 
with the completion of the large internal market and 
which should have adequate financing assured at Com­
munity level. 
6.1.5. Like environment policy, transport and com­
munications policy is one of the major factors determin­
ing the quality of life: this is a fact that the Committee 
has drawn attention to many times. 
6.2. A common agricultural policy based on solidarity 
6.2.1. Agricultural policy is a particularly sensitive 
area and will give rise to numerous discussions which 
cannot be confined to the issue of farm prices, however 
important this may be. 
6.2.2. Agriculture must be developed within the 
framework of the large internal market, which under­
lines the importance of reforming the common agricul­
tural policy (CAP) to make possible (a) the adjustments 
required by the world market situation and the Com­
munity's relations with third countries, and (b) a 
reduction in the escalating costs. 
6.2.3. Thus it is absolutely necessary to preserve the 
CAP basic principles, viz. Community preference, the 
single market and financial solidarity. 
6.2.4. As in other areas, every effort must be made 
to avoid dismantling the CAP, with partial or wholesale 
're-nationalization'. 
6.2.5. Price policy must be backed up by Community 
income support policies as part of the necessary devel­
opment of the socio-structural aspect. The CAP must 
assign new functions to farmers and forestry enterprises within the framework of an active policy for improving 
the quality of life and the quality of the environment, 
which is essential for the protection of the countryside 
and our natural heritage. 
6.2.6. Among other forms of agriculture, preser­
vation of the family farm must be seen as a necessity 
and given encouragement. In the country, family farms 
play the humanizing and invigorating role that in towns 
is performed by small firms and the local shop. 
6.3. The social dimension of the Community pact 
6.3.1. What is at stake for all Europeans is the ability 
to continue to forge links of active cooperation and 
solidarity. The Committee will always seek a social 
consensus on progress while respecting the identity of 
the various economic and social partners. 
6.3.2. The persistent high level of unemployment is 
leading to unacceptable personal distress. It is also 
depriving the economy of useful manpower, particu­
larly in the case of young people, whose integration in 
working life should be facilitated by appropriate train­
ing in the new technologies, which are essential for 
improving business competitiveness. 
Social security policies will never bring a lasting sol­
ution. Over a longer period of time benefits will inevi­
tably lead to personal and social marginalization unless 
they are accompanied by training measures to enhance 
the job prospects and possibilities of social integration 
of the unemployed. 
6.3.3. The need for a social dimension does emerge 
vaguely in the Commission's communication. The 
Committee urges the Commission to show its resolve 
in explicit terms, since the taking into account of legit­
imate social aspirations is also a precondition for more 
sustained economic dynamism. 
6.3.4. The Committee stresses that the profound 
changes in the fabric of industry made necessary by the 
development of new technologies and the company 
restructuring inevitably associated with the completion 
of the large internal market must not lead to more 
unemployment and must not affect the will to continue 
social progress and press ahead with measures to create 
jobs. The Committee points out that negotiated 
measures in the area of manpower planning, organiza­
tion of work, adaptation of working time and retraining 
are essential here. 
No C 180/4 Official Journal of the European Communities 8. 7. 87 
6.4. A people's Europe 
6.4.1. The support of public opinion is necessary if 
a success is to be made of the Single Act. 
The Committee therefore urges its members, both indi­
vidually and collectively, to make a constant effort to 
inform and convince the groups they represent. 
The Community cannot survive simply with the support 
of its 'militants', however necessary they may be, or of 
the initiated. The Community must be considered to be 
everybody's business. Unless there is popular support, 
political determination is bound to waver. 
It is therefore necessary to make a larger impact on 
public opinion by significant progress towards a 
people's Europe, so as to gain the public's support and 
ensure extensive participation in the next European 
Parliament elections. 
6.4.2. In the cultural and educational sphere it is 
necessary to: 
— act in the spirit of the Erasmus and YES programmes 
and develop Community-level cultural and edu­
cational projects for the acquisition of a second 
Community language before the age of 10 and a 
third Community language after that age, so that 
young people will be able to achieve their full poten­
tial in the new common area of communications, 
education and culture opened up by the rapproche­
ment of the peoples of Europe and by the develop­
ment of the new technologies, 
— encourage the further development of European 
awareness by promoting new history programmes 
so that young people can become more conscious 
of their European identity. 
7. In conclusion 
7.1. The Committee generally endorses the Com­
mission's initiative. 
Done at Brussels, 13 May 1987. 7.2. It would point out vigorously to the govern­
ments of the Member States that the strategy proposed 
by the Commission is a minimum coherent and indivis­
ible set of measures for achieving the objectives they 
have wittingly set themselves in the Single Act. To 
adopt only some of the elements of the Single Act or 
only some of the Commission's proposals would mean 
renouncing these objectives. 
7.3. After 30 years Europe is admittedly still a new 
idea. This is not any reason or even less an excuse for 
resting on our oars; this would be all the more disas­
trous since most of the economic and social problems 
that the Member States are to varying degrees confront­
ed with cannot be solved by a country on its own or 
without active solidarity. 
7.4. We must therefore resolutely boost job creation 
policies and maintain social protection systems operat­
ing on the principle of solidarity and open to all. 
7.5. Making a success of the Single Act poses a dual 
challenge: 
— for firms, the challenge of regaining competitive­
ness, through, among other things, the internal mar­
ket, so as to be in a better position to face up to 
the growing world dimension of business and the 
international market, whose centre of gravity is 
moving towards the Pacific, 
-— for the peoples of Europe, the challenge of affirming 
the value of a common heritage in terms of civiliza­
tion and culture, by demonstrating their ability to 
establish a Community based on progress, solidarity 
and freedom, open to the world. In this way we 
shall together assume our responsibilities on the 
international scene, while respecting the identity of 
other peoples, and we shall articulate better the 
complementarity of our national and European 
identities. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alfons MARGOT 
8. 7. 87 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 180/5 
ANNEX 1 
The following amendment was rejected during the debate: 
Reword the second part of point 3.3 as follows: 
'The creation of a harmonious people's Europe must be a key concern. This presupposes increased 
employment in Community firms. Here the main solution lies in the building of a new-frontier Europe 
within the time limit laid down so as to tap the potential of the European market to the full and enable 
Community firms to compete on the international market. This is a prerequisite to maintaining social 
standards in the Community and paving the way for further social progress.' 
Delete point 4.1. 
Voting 
For: 36, against: 92, abstentions: 14. 
ANNEX 2 
The following members, present or represented, voted in favour of the Opinion: 
Mr ALEXOPOULOS 
Mr ARENA 
Mr ARETS 
Mr ASPINAL 
Mr ATA1DE 
Mr BAZIANAS 
Mr BENTO GONCALVES 
Mr BERNASCONI 
Mr BLACK 
Mr BLESER 
Mr BOISSEREE 
Mrs BREDIMA 
Mr BRIGANTI 
Mr BURNEL 
Mr CALVET CHAMBON 
Mr CAMPBELL 
Mr CASHMAN 
Mr CEBALLO HERRERO 
Mr CEYRAC 
Mr CLAVEL 
Mr COLLAS 
Mr ALV'ES CONDE 
Mr CORTOIS 
Mr van DAM 
Mr DASSIS 
Mr DELHOMENIE 
Mr DE TAVERNIER 
Miss DODD 
Mr DONCK 
Mr DROULIN 
Mrs ELSTNER 
Mr EMO CAPODILISTA 
Mr ETTY 
Mr EULEN 
Mr FLUM 
Mr FORJAS I CABRERA 
Mr FRESI 
Mr GERMOZZI Mr GEUENICH 
Mr GLESENER 
Mr VAN GREUNSVEN 
Mr HAAS 
Mr HANCOCK 
Mr HILKENS 
Mr HOUTHUYS 
Mr HORSEN 
Mr HOVGAARD JAKOBSEN 
Mr JASCHICK 
Mr KAZAZIS 
Mr KELLY 
Mr KROGER 
Mr LAKA MARTIN 
Mr LANCASTRE. 
Mr LANDABURU 
Mr LAUR 
Mr LOJEWSKI 
Mr LUCHETTI 
Mr MACHADO von TSCHUSI 
Mr MAINETTI 
Mr MARGALEF MASIA 
Mr MARTIN ALMENDRO 
Mrs MARTIN CASTELLA 
Mr MARVIER 
Mr MASPRONE 
Mr MEYER HORN 
Mr MORELAND 
Mr MORSELLI 
Mr MOURGUES 
Mr MUHR 
Mr MULLER 
Mr MUNIZ GUARDADO 
Mr NIERHAUS 
Mr NIEUWENHUIZE 
Mr NOORDWAL 
Mr de NORMANN 
Mr PELLETIER Mr PERRIN-PELLETIER 
Mr PETROPOULOS 
Mr POETON 
Mr PROENCA 
Mr QUEVEDO ROJO 
Mr RAFTOPOULOS 
Mr RAMAEKERS 
Mrs RANGONI-MACHIA\ 
Mr RIBIERE 
Mr RIERA MARSA 
Mr ROBINSON 
Mr ROLAO GONCALVES 
Mr ROMOLI 
Mr ROSEINGRAVE 
Mr ROUZIER 
Mr SAttJ 
Mr SALMON 
Mr SCHMITZ 
Mr SCHNIEDERS 
Mr SCHOEPGES 
Mr SOLARI 
Mr SPEIRS 
Mr SPIJKERS 
Mr STAEDELIN 
Mr STAHLMANN 
Mr STORIE-PUGH 
Mr STRAUSS 
Mr TAMLIN 
Mr TERMES CARRERO 
Mr TIEMAN 
Mr TUKKER 
Mr VASSILARAS 
Mr VIDAL 
Mr WAGNER 
Mrs WILLIAMS 
Mr WHITWORTH 
Mr ZUFIAUR NARVAIZA 
No C 180/6 Official Journal of the European Communities 8. 7. 87 
The following members, present or represented, voted against the Opinion: 
Mr AMATO 
Mr BODDY 
Mr LOBO BRANDAO 
Mr CARROLL 
Mr CAVAZZUTI 
Mr CHRISTIE 
Mr CURLIS 
Mr DRILLEAUD 
Mr DUNET Mr GIACOMELLI 
Mr GOMEZ MARTINEZ 
Mr HAMMOND 
Mr JENKINS 
Miss MADDOCKS 
Mr NETO DA SILVA 
Mr ORSI 
Mr SALOMONE 
Mr SILVA Mr SMITH A. R. 
Mr SMITH L. J. 
Mr SPRINGBORG 
Mr TIXIER 
Mr VALLEJO CALDERON 
Mr VELASCO MANCEBO 
Mr VERCELLINO 
The following members, present or represented, abstained: 
Mr APARICIO BRAVO 
Mr BAGLIANO 
Mr BELTRAMI 
Mr BERETTA 
Mr BOS 
Mr BRIGANTI 
Mr CORELL AYORA 
Mr COYLE 
Mr von der DECKEN Mr DELLA CROCE 
Mr DOS SANTOS 
Mr FRANDI 
Mr GARDNER 
Mr GORIS 
Mrs GREDAL 
Mr GREEN 
Mr HAGEN 
Mr KAARIS Mr KENNA 
Mr MURPHY 
Mr NIELSEN B. 
Mr NIELSEN P. 
Mr PARDON 
Mr PEARSON 
Mr PRONK 
Mr PROUMENS 
Mr SKOVBRO LARSEN