Annex 3: The European single market
The Single Market has occupied a central place in European Community policies from the original signing of the Treaty of Rome by the six founder nations in 1957. Among the most fundamental objectives set out in that Treaty were the "four freedoms", defined as freedom for unhindered movement within the European Community for people, goods, services and money. Unhindered movement, in this context, does not mean a complete removal of controls but rather a harmonization of regulatory processes so that the controls that are applied in any one European country are no less, and no more, than in any other. Linked to this is a system of mutual recognition whereby compliance with the regulatory requirements demonstrated in one Member State is valid in all the others. The intended outcome is that a European manufacturer of a product, for example, who has shown in his own country that the product complies with Community law, may market it in all 15 Member States without further hindrance. Equally, an importer of a product made outside Europe has only to show once that it conforms in order to offer it for sale across Europe.
This desired outcome is close to achievement in the case of the movement of goods, but it has taken much time and negotiation. Each Member State, including all of those who joined the Community after 1957, has had to agree to withdraw or amend its own regulatory controls in favour of harmonized sets defined in European Directives. In so doing, inevitably some States have been required to accept relaxations from the degree of control they had formerly applied while others have had to adopt more rigorous regulation. In order to speed progress towards the objective, the Member States agreed upon a New Approach to be adopted in Single Market Directives. The crucial feature of the New Approach was the adoption of majority voting, so that no one State could exercise a veto. This proposal was ratified in 1987.
The overall impact of the Single Market Directives is intended to be deregulatory and this is underlined in another feature of the New Approach. The content of these Directives is deliberately confined to matters of essential importance, with technical detail being left to the European standardization bodies to consider. Such technical matters as are incorporated in the Directives are primarily those related to safety, and even those are stated in terms of general principles. This practice reduces the risk that the Directives will inhibit development and it also minimises the need to re-negotiate a Directive in order to up-date its technical content, both of which are important considerations in a deregulatory environment. A practice of mandating standards has been adopted, whereby the European Commission can mandate the preparation of standards on particular topics. Standards have no automatic mandatory force, but because compliance with a listed harmonized standard is acceptable as evidence of conformity with the relevant parts of a Directive, they will provide the normal route for demonstrating conformity.
It usually remains as an option for a manufacturer or importer to show that, despite non-compliance with a harmonized standard, the product nevertheless conforms with the principles of the essential requirements. However, in the particular case of Telecommunications Terminals, the Commission may adopt a harmonized standard and give it mandatory force where it is evident that the standard describes a unique set of conditions that must be obtained for the proper inter-working of the equipment with the network. This mechanism for enforcing a standard, or parts of a standard, is known as a Common Technical Regulation.
| Previous | Contents | Next |