Thursday, June 13, 2013

Services liberalisation: David Cameron has one more reason to love Spain

We reported in today's press summary that Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and opposition leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba have agreed to adopt a common position ahead of the 27-28 June EU summit. The full document - a draft resolution due to be voted on by the Spanish parliament a couple of days before the summit - is now available online.

We found the following paragraph very interesting (the emphasis is ours). The Spanish parliament urges the government to,
"Favour progress on the completion of the internal market through the swift adoption of the pending legislative proposals under the Single Market Act I and II. Particular attention shall also be paid to the full and effective implementation of the Services Directive."
We couldn't agree more. As we stressed in a recent report, the services sector represents a huge untapped source of growth for the EU. A quick reminder of the figures we're talking about:
  • Further liberalisation of services by fully implementing the existing Services Directive and implementing a new 'country of origin' principle would result in a permanent boost to EU-wide GDP of up to an extra €294 billion a year;
  • If Spain, the UK and the other ten EU countries that signed a 'pro-growth letter' in February 2012 decided to press ahead among themselves and open up their services markets under the so-called 'enhanced cooperation' procedure, this would still drive EU-wide GDP up by some €148 billion a year.
¿Por qué no?

2 comments:

  1. The story about country of origin for services:
    http://www.monbiot.com/2005/03/08/the-real-straight-banana/

    "But it also appears to impose on member states a compulsory commercialisation of their public services, while destroying their ability to defend their people from corporate exploitation."

    Destroying their ability to defend their people from corporate exploitation.....
    That sounds like something an uncaring elite would do so I'm not surprised that EU leaders support it.

    But I'll keep an open mind, which services professions are holding Europe back?

    Please list the professions that are keeping Europe back so that people can see what it is all about.

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  2. In Africa there has been private "services" for 100 yrs. That's the model for Europe? What an ignorant piece.

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