Joint business statement on the One Europe, One Market roadmap

The European business community welcomes the EU institutions’ renewed political commitment to strengthening the Single Market and simplifying EU legislation. The One Europe, One Market roadmap sets the right direction, but more is needed, as progress remains limited: Single Market integration has once again stalled, with intra-EU trade in goods falling to 22% of GDP in 2024 and services trade remaining at a low of 7.9% of GDP.

At the same time, despite welcome simplification efforts, including the Omnibus initiatives and the Action Plan for Regulatory Deep Cleaning, businesses continue to face excessive regulatory burdens and have yet to see tangible improvements.

A competitive Europe requires a truly integrated Single Market that fully delivers on the free movement of goods, services, capital and people, alongside a regulatory environment that enables businesses to invest, innovate and trade across borders without barriers. In order for the roadmap to really be a “historic overhaul of the Single Market” as stated in the Commission President 2026 State of the Union Address, the European business community calls on the EU institutions to translate their commitments into concrete actions and prioritise the following:

Deepening the Single Market:

• Ensure that the Commission and the co-legislators urgently deliver the full removal of the ‘Terrible Ten’ Single Market barriers as identified in the Commission’s 2025 Single Market Strategy; that Member States reduce regulatory fragmentation resulting from gold-plating; and that the Commission takes decisive action where Member States fail to remove diverging, unnecessary and disproportionate national provisions. Moreover, complete the Single Market beyond the ‘Terrible Ten’ across all critical areas, including energy, environment, digital, retail, banking and capital, health and defence.
• Set longer-term Single Market integration targets, comparable to those established for the green and digital transitions, to provide strategic direction for EU policymaking.
• Strengthen Single Market governance by ensuring that adherence to the four Single Market freedoms is systematically embedded across the work of all Commission services, from the drafting of proposals and negotiations with the co-legislators to the enforcement of existing rules, and by providing adequate resources to support this. At the same time, give DG GROW a stronger mandate to oversee the Commission’s adherence to the Single Market principles.
• Safeguard the integrity of the Single Market across all policy initiatives by ensuring that new legislation does not inadvertently create fragmentation or new barriers and by closely involving the business community to ensure that legislative initiatives reflect real-world operational needs. At the same time, demonstrate to citizens across the EU the benefits of deeper Single Market integration.
• Improve notification of national (draft) rules to enhance the quality of national legislation and prevent the adoption of potentially infringing rules. To strengthen enforcement and compliance, ensure that the Commission effectively follows up on Member States’ failures to notify and ensure respective information provision to stakeholders.
• Ensure stronger political ownership and coordination by making the improvement of the Single Market a permanent agenda item of the Competitiveness Council.
• Clarify governance and coordination between SMET, the Single Market sherpas, and the Simplification Platform to ensure coherent decision-making, and establish clear responsibility for removing barriers and reducing regulatory burden for companies.

Delivering tangible regulatory burden reduction:

• Urgently propose the remaining Omnibus packages, together with additional burden reduction measures, strictly maintaining the objective of significantly reducing regulatory and compliance costs for businesses. Such measures are most urgently needed in the areas of social, consumer protection, digital, circular economy, and public procurement policy.
• Introduce an immediate moratorium on new regulatory burdens, including secondary legislation, withdraw pending burdensome proposals and conduct in-depth review of all EU legislation.
• Demonstrate regulatory discipline and ensure that any future legislative initiative is justified by a clear policy need for intervention at EU level, supported by robust impact assessments, including for substantial amendments introduced by the co-legislators, and thorough evaluations of existing legislation. To this end, update and reinforce the commitments set out in the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making (IIA). Where new initiatives are necessary, starting with the European Product Act, they should focus on improving the functioning of the Single Market, without creating unnecessary additional burden for businesses.

The European business community calls on the European Commission and the co-legislators to demonstrate political leadership, urgency, and commitment in implementing these recommendations. It stands ready to work with the EU institutions to support implementation and help deliver tangible results for businesses across Europe.