Focused and strategic approach ahead of the Single Market Act (2011)?

What did the contemporaries think about the fifty proposals of the consultation paper (green paper):

Towards a Single Market Act

For a highly competitive social market economy

50 proposals for improving our work, business and exchanges with one another

Brussels, 11.11.2010 COM(2010) 608 final/2 (45 pages)?

SEC(2011) 467

The different language versions of the Commission’s Single Market Act pages - English here - offer us links to three distilled documents about the public consultation.

First: On eight pages the first overview of responses gives us a picture of the 840 respondents and highlights some of the preferences of different stakeholder groups: individual citizens, trade unions, industry federations, individual companies, consumer organisations, non-governmental organisations, other organisations and public authorities.

Second: The statistical charts of the public consultation (44 pages) dealt with the 740 responses given on the Commission’s form.

Potentially interesting with regard to internal market challenges would be the 366 who thought that the green paper proposed adequate measures only partly; likewise the 245, 228 and 151 respectively for the different chapters wishing for other issues to be addressed.

Third: We are not directly invited by the SMA page to study the individual contributions, and the access page promised by the Commission Staff Working Paper (CSW) can not be found. Thus, we are restricted to the 32 pages of the CSW published, in English only, on the same day as the Single Market Act (SMA) communication:

Overview of responses to the public consultation on the Communication ‘Towards a Single Market Act’; Brussels, 13.4.2011 SEC(2011) 467 final  

Beside the statistical basics covered in the earlier documents, the discussion about the wishes of member states, local authorities and European Economic Area (EEA) countries offers us some interesting nuggets.  

In addition to many positive calls from industry federations with regard to ongoing actions or promised proposals, we take note of this paragraph (page 15):

A large number of respondents in this category welcome the comprehensive approach of the SMA. Some of them invite the European Commission to adopt a more focused and strategic approach, and to seek coherence with the other policy areas and the EU 2020 flagship initiatives.

Single Market Act

I did not notice that the Commission would have elaborated on the theme of  strategic level in the SEC(2011) 467 document, but perhaps we can hope that the Commission’s proper potential strategic level response was the communication published in the official EU languages (here to the English version):

   

Single Market Act

Twelve levers to boost growth and strengthen confidence

"Working together to create new growth"

Brussels, 13.4.2011 COM(2011) 206 final (26 pages)

Ralf Grahn