EU Resolves To Fix Single Market But Hurdles Remain
JustinEurope must "make much better use of the power that comes from our massive single market," the Commission president told dignitaries, ambassadors and senior officials from EU institutions. "We want our companies to find the best conditions to grow right here in Europe."
Europe must "make much better use of the power that comes from our massive single market," the Commission president told dignitaries, ambassadors and senior officials from EU institutions. "We want our companies to find the best conditions to grow right here in Europe."
It's a mammoth task and one that has eluded a whole generation of politicians. A new article by the European Central Bank is testimony to that failure and makes for sobering reading. It found that trade frictions across the EU are more onerous than the highest tariff US President Donald Trump threatened to slap on the bloc last year.
Barriers such as differences in national rules and regulations, cumbersome administrative procedures and anti-competitive practices generate costs equivalent to levies of 67% for goods and 95% for services, ECB economists including Lucia Quaglietti and Vanessa Gunnella wrote.
The research underlines the need for reform that the central bank has been advocating for years. President Christine Lagarde regularly stresses that unlocking the EU's full potential is crucial for the economy to thrive.
Bill White, the US ambassador to Belgium, made a similar point in an interview today with Bloomberg TV and Radio.
"Any smart business person investing in Europe…would prefer to have much less regulation," White said, adding for good measure that there's "a lot of people in the European Parliament who haven't signed a check or owned a business."
At last night's gathering, Von der Leyen hailed the Mercosur trade deal, which she will sign in Paraguay on Saturday along with European Council President Antonio Costa, noting that it would create a market worth almost 20% of global GDP.
She also said a proposal was coming soon on the so-called 28th regime, a pan-European rulebook for companies that would seek to address the problem of fragmented legal and regulatory landscapes.
Both the Draghi and Letta reports on EU competitiveness called for such a mechanism, though business has warned that it should not create additional complexity or uncertainty.
Ambassador White also discussed Greenland in his Bloomberg interview, saying he believes there will be a "productive framework" between Trump and the Danish premier leading to more security for the Arctic island. He emphasized the US president's support for NATO, claiming that Trump has been "the greatest supporter" of the military alliance it's ever seen.
Shares in Dutch chipmaker ASML soared to a record today, making it only the third European company to surpass $500 billion in market value. The surge came after key customer TSMC published a stronger-than-anticipated outlook for this year.
stalemate between Denmark and the US over Greenland has prompted Europeans to establish a military presence on the Arctic island after a high-level meeting failed to defuse US threats over its future. Germany will send a reconnaissance team to Nuuk tomorrow together with personnel from other NATO partners. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius accused Russia and China of "increasingly using the Arctic for military purposes."
