Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
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UK welcomes removal of trade barriers in Single Market Act II
The UK yesterday welcomed the publication of Single Market Act II by the European Commission. The Act sets out a number of proposals to improve the way that the single market works and adapt the single market to new ways of doing business.
The new measures reflect months of negotiations and lobbying by the UK, and other like-minded member states, to ensure that unnecessary burdens are not placed on companies and barriers to trade are removed to open up the EU market.
Single Market Act II calls for: action to further develop transport and energy infrastructure across the EU; reforms to support the digital economy and promote the mobility of citizens and businesses across borders; and action to strengthen social entrepreneurship, cohesion and consumer confidence.
Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said:
“The single market is good for British businesses and the UK has always been a champion of the single market. It makes trade easier, gets us access to markets and is a significant market in itself for British companies. Single Market Act II will help improve the way the market functions, and bring it up to date.
“The UK has been closely involved in making sure that the Act brings forward the improvements needed, opening up new markets without placing additional burdens on European companies. The UK will continue to champion the single market and prioritise measures with the greatest potential to boost jobs and growth.”
Notes to editors:
- The proposals were published a week before Single Market Week, which marks the 20th Anniversary of the Single Market with a series of events across Europe.
- The Government's economic policy objective is to achieve 'strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries'. It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget 2011:
- To create the most competitive tax system in the G20
- To make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
- To encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
- To create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.
Work is underway across Government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the Government wants the economy to travel.
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