“Thank you. I will share the presentation with my colleague from DG TAXUD starting if we can have the presentation. So single market and customs programme. So the challenge has been a coordination of the policy actions at the EU level. We consider of course that EU funding is essential to enable the Commission to fulfill its legal obligation and address single market and customs union issues falling into its competence. There is a need for a collective and coordinated EU response to today's challenges which are linked to geopolitics, environment, and digitalization. The single market programme is aligned with political single market priorities identified in Tracky and letter reports underlying the importance of the single market and these recent reports presented recommendations that were considered in the drafting of this proposal. The single market and customs programme also aligns with the strategic agenda set out in the President von der Leyen's political guidelines. These guidelines include the need for further deepening the single market leading to sustainable prosperity and competitiveness and prioritize advancing Europe's economic interdependence. Then concerning the consistency with the other proposals, there is a complementarity with the European Competitiveness Fund. The actions supported by the programme seek to improve the functioning and shielding the external borders of the single market and customs union as the home market for the EU industry and businesses and a vector for competitiveness. The single market programme is coherent and consistent with the single market strategy. The strategy aims to deepen and strengthen the database single market at the EU and national level and digitalising administration and reducing administrative barriers to increase coordination and cooperation of authorities. This programme will have a critical role in ensuring the transition to the future EU customs policy landscape introduced by the proposal of the customs union reform which includes the establishment of an EU customs authority and the development and operation of an EU customs data hub. Next slide please. So what is Commission proposing? So there are two, the single market and customs union are the two major elements to provide Europe with the solid framework to reinforce its economic security. A well-functioning single market is essential to ensure Europe's prosperity, growth, solidarity, resilience, and preparedness. The Commission proposes a single market and customs programme with an indicative budget amounting to 6.2 billion. This programme consolidates four current funding strands into one unified financing programme and these strands are the single market programme, the customs programme including customs control equipment instrument, Fiscalis programme, and the anti-fraud programme. Concerning the scope of this single market programme in this new programme, and I mentioned partly the SMEs and the food and feed strands are no longer part of this. Next slide please. So the programme addresses the overarching problem which has been identified in the political guidelines which is to address the complexity of the funding landscape and this landscape lacks flexibility, synergies and shows shortcomings in terms of coherence negatively impacting access to funds and undermining the impact of EU budget. The single market and customs programme aims to deepen the single market and strengthen the customs union while simplifying access to funding and reducing administrative burden. The single flexible instrument should increase adaptability and responsiveness to unforeseen needs compared to having separate programmes. And to achieve this, three areas of action have been identified: firstly, removing barriers; secondly, facilitating collaboration; and thirdly, fostering good implementation and enforcement. Next slide please. So what are the advantages of merging this programme into one unified one? So the design has been, this has been designed with this new approach, more policy-based budget and in line with the rationalisation of the EU budget for the next MFF, namely a more streamlined financial programme, simple access to funding, budget flexibility and focus on EU priorities and adaptability to unforeseen needs. Also with the design and structure that foster more flexibility, simplification and synergies. So this new programme enables continuity which is essential for activities financed under current programmes but has the potential to produce synergies with cross-cutting impacts on multiple policy areas and will aim to simplify access to funding and reduce administrative burden by simplifications in the programme design using joint procurement, joint framework contracts and use its budget flexibility to adapt and respond to any unforeseen needs. The consolidation into one programme will ensure coherence between the components and produce greater EU added value more effectively than its standalone programmes. Next slide please. So here the single market will support different various types of activities which apply to all specific objectives of the programme and will be undertaken across multiple policy areas. Here you can see in the slide in the lower part on these activities. Maybe just to go to the next slide. So here the key components already mentioned: the single market, customs union, taxation policy and anti-fraud. What is important to see is that this single market and customs programme covers policy needs by bringing together activities financed under the three previous programmes and all these areas are interconnected. I would like to mention some examples of the synergies that could take place in this respect. Firstly, by customs, market surveillance and consumers: the coordinated checks at the border and online to detect and keep unsafe and non-compliant products out of the single market supported by enforcement tools. Also standards play a role in this area. Secondly, on customs, taxation and anti-fraud synergies: cooperation with the information exchange supported by digitalization. Third area: standardization, market surveillance and competition harmonise standards and enforcement, minimise fragmentation and facilitate market access with fair competition. And then lastly, I would like to mention the statistics in all policy areas: comparable and timely data to inform and support. Next slide please. Concerning the budget, of course the budget is very indicative. Currently the overall budget is 6.2 billion. Several budget lines are proposed and maybe just to see that the considerable part of the activities that this single market and customs union is covering and they're covered by the legal obligations falling to Commission's competence. May next, next slide maybe please. Yes, so in the single market activities, there are single market activities covered by six different budget lines. Maybe quickly go through these budget lines: the first one is the— Yeah, how long is your presentation still? Because we're more or less running out of time.”
EU Single Market harmonisation · EU policy on custom fee on non-EU imports
“You can—yeah, well, I will go at ten. I will just say that there are six different budget lines on the single market activities, not going in there in the internal market, company law, competition policy, financial services, consumers and European statistics. And then I will turn, I will give the floor to my colleague to continue.”
EU Single Market harmonisation · EU Competition policy · EU competences on consumer protection and product standards