Reform of the Internal Market

The single market is the economic core of the EU and many of the EU's political progress has grown from the EU being founded as an economic union.

Balancing the economic and the political aspects of European integration has been the determining challenge for the EU in the past decades.

The European Commissioner for the internal market, Michel Barnier, has launched a package of various pieces of legislation, in order to address the gaps and barriers preventing completion of the single market

The Greens believe that the single market is biased towards economic interests. Big companies often have easier access and more concentrated incentives to influence European policy than European citizens.

In principle, the Greens welcome the approach to rebalance single market policies towards citizens.

We are in favour of increasing consumer and citizen confidence through better rights and knowledge of those rights.

More mobility on the European labour market through better recognition of diploma could make a very pragmatic contribution to European integration.

Greater recognition of social economy enterprises would strengthen the European economy and the social tissue.

The Greens succeeded to include several amendments on key issues.

Together with the social-democrat S&D we introduced the demand for a social clause in the final text.

We also helped to reject the liberal ALDE's attempt to facilitate private-public partnerships (PPPs) in the field of services of general interest, such as water supply or social services.

We supported the introduction of a passage on greater inclusion of civil society and local authorities.

And we introduced a principled addition for the change towards a more sustainable economic structure of the single market.

The Greens were not able to avoid industry-friendly wordings on intellectual property rights and venture capital.

We disagree with demands on limiting immigration to highly qualified immigrants.

We were not satisfied with the weak language on collective redress.

And we were not able to introduce more detailed demands on the social economy at this point.