Single Market Information Tool

Briefing 05-10-2017

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's impact assessment (IA) accompanying the above proposal, submitted on 2 May 2017 and referred to Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection. The creation of a deeper and fairer single market is one of the ten main priorities of the Juncker Commission. To this end, the Commission proposed a new single market strategy in 2015. One of the key areas of the single market strategy’s targeted actions is dedicated to a smart enforcement strategy and the culture of compliance and is entitled ‘Ensuring practical delivery’. Within this area, the strategy announced, among other actions, ‘a regulatory initiative on a market information tool for the Single Market, enabling the Commission to collect information from selected market players’ (Single Market Strategy, p.16). It is this 'Single Market Information Tool' (SMIT) that is the subject of the Commission proposal. Two other initiatives were proposed by the Commission alongside the SMIT on 2 May 2017 as part of the compliance package: a regulation establishing a single digital gateway and an action plan on the reinforcement of the SOLVIT tool .