Mr Jyrki Katainen
Vice-President of the European Commission

20 July 2018

Ms Elżbieta Bieńkowska
Commissioner: Internal market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Dear Mr Vice-President and Ms Commissioner,

Follow up to the European Council Conclusions in March 2018
A well-functioning and future-proof Single Market is vital for the growth and global
competitiveness of the European Union. A lot has already been done, but there is still
untapped potential, which should be identified and better exploited to increase
cross-border trade within the EU, make Europe more attractive for businesses and
investments, and deliver well-being for EU citizens.
To this end, in March 2018 the European Council invited the Commission to prepare
an assessment of remaining barriers to and opportunities for a fully functioning
Single Market, as well as a state of play regarding the implementation, application
and enforcement of existing legislation. The Commission is requested to present the
outcome of the work to the Council before the Leaders’ Agenda discussion in
December 2018. We would like to emphasize the importance of this analysis, as an
essential starting point for further development of the Single Market.
In order to achieve a well-functioning and future-proof Single Market, we invite the
Commission to prepare an ambitious analysis, which detects:
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Opportunities for enhancing the cross-border trade including stronger
empowerment of businesses through more business-friendly legislation and
better information and support. Digitalisation should be seen as one of the key
enablers for the future-proof Single Market.
Remaining barriers from a user perspective looking across sectors outlining the
facts and needs for entrepreneurs and citizens and potential ways for
accommodating these.
Inefficient enforcement and/or application of Single Market rules, legal,
administrative and non-legal restrictions (e.g. inadequate information)

The aim should be to illustrate where the untapped potential of the Single Market
lies. Based on the analysis, it could be assessed what kind of measures – whether
general or sector-specific – are most appropriate to tackle the outstanding issues.
Especially, we need to identify opportunities and barriers as experienced by
entrepreneurs, including within which sectors such barriers are most profound. This
requires a more systematic, focused and thorough economic analysis as well as
research to develop an understanding of entrepreneurs’ experiences through

process mappings and comparative analysis of the mappings. The work would form a
welcomed addition to, for example, the present Single Market Scoreboard. We are
willing to work together with you in this process and provide you with further
suggestions.
As the guardian of the Treaty, the Commission is certainly best suited to prepare the
above analysis. However, Member States also need to commit themselves to working
towards a better-functioning Single Market. This requires European cooperation with
strong involvement and ownership of all levels of government in each Member State, the
European Commission and the European Parliament.
As an indication of such involvement, cooperation and commitment, Ireland, together
with Czech Republic, Finland and Denmark, has planned and tendered a study to identify
and tackle remaining barriers as well as untapped potential in the field of services. The
study is being prepared by Copenhagen Economics. The work is still ongoing and the
results should be available in October 2018. The outcome of the study will be presented
and made available for the Commission to use.
We are pleased to hear that the Commission has recently published a new call for tender
for the following study: Mapping and assessment of removal of legal and administrative
barriers in the service sector. We expect this study to be a significant contribution to our
common efforts, and a welcome first step in identifying legal and administrative barriers.
Additional work will be required into non-legal barriers, such as lack of information, or
inefficient enforcement of Single Market rules, in order to complete the picture of
barriers and opportunities.

To conclude, we are ready and willing to work hard for a future-proof Single Market,
that is fit for the digital age and sustainable growth, in order to make the European
economy stronger and more competitive. We invite the Commission to present its
work to the High-Level Group on Competitiveness and Growth and the
Competitiveness Council in advance of the European Council, to provide for fruitful
discussions on how to improve the functioning of the Single Market.

Yours sincerely,
Mr Kris Peeters
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Employment, Economy and Consumers, in
charge of Foreign Trade
Belgium
Mr Darko Horvat
Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts
Croatia
Ms Marta Nováková
Minister of Industry and Trade
Czech Republic

Mr Rasmus Jarlov
Minister for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs
Denmark
Ms Kadri Simson
Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure
Estonia, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
Mr Mika Lintilä
Minister of Economic Affairs
Finland
Ms Heather Humphreys T.D.
Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation
Ireland
Mr Arvils Ašeradens
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Economics
Latvia
Mr Virginijus Sinkevičius
Minister of Economy
Lithuania
Mr Étienne Schneider
Vice Prime Minister, Minister of the Economy
Luxembourg
Mr Christian Cardona
Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Buisiness
Malta
Mrs mr. drs. M.C.G. Keijzer
State Secretary of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy
The Netherlands
Mr Marcin Ociepa
Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology
Poland
Mr Paulo Alexandre Ferreira
Deputy Minister for Economy and Secretary of State for Commerce
Portugal
Mr Peter Žiga
Minister of Economy
Slovak Republic

Ms Ann Linde
Minister for EU Affairs and Trade
Sweden
Copied to:
Mr Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament
Mr Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission
Mr Andrus Ansip, Vice-President of the European Commission
Mr Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission
Mr Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission
The Member States’ Permanent Representations to the EU