Brussels, 14 February 2024
Today, the Commission is publishing the new Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report.
The report details the competitive strengths and challenges of Europe’s Single Market, tracking yearly developments according to the nine competitiveness drivers identified in the EU’s 2023 Long-term competitiveness Communication. Those are the functioning of the Single Market, access to private capital, public investment and infrastructure, research and innovation, energy, circularity, digitalisation, education and skills, and trade and open strategic autonomy. The 2023 Communication established a set of Key Performance Indicators to serve as a dashboard of progress regarding these drivers. While it is too early to establish stable trends, the report notes that 9 KPIs have improved, against 5 that have disimproved; 3 are stable, and 2 do not yet have new data.
The report recalls that the Single Market is one of the world’s largest integrated market areas, and that it boosts the EU’s economy with a large demand pool, diversified supply sources, opportunities for innovating and scaling up production, strong social rights, and fair working conditions, while serving as a geopolitical lever. It points to the needs to step up enforcement of agreed rules, and to simplify their implementation.
Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, said:
“Today’s report confirms Europe’s many competitive strengths, and that a strong Single Market remains key for our businesses to thrive and exploit new opportunities. But more efforts are needed to pull in investments, boost our strategic technologies and ensure that our workforce is equipped with the right skills.”
Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, said:
“The Single Market and industrial policy go hand in hand to support the EU’s competitiveness. Today’s report presents facts and figures highlighting the many strengths of the EU economy, its Single Market, its innovation potential, and its regulatory framework in the green and digital spheres. Despite these strong assets, more efforts are required to address energy costs, avoid trading old dependencies in fossil fuels for new dependencies and to ensure better coordination of EU and national investments in the technologies of the future, for quality jobs in the EU.”
For more information, a press release is available online.
Source – EU Commission