Europaudvalget 2017
KOM (2017) 0256
Offentligt
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EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
Brussels, 2.5.2017
SWD(2017) 213 final
PART 2/3
Compliance Package
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Accompanying the document
Proposal for a regulation of the European parliament and of the Council
on establishing a single digital gateway to provide information, procedures, assistance
and problem solving services and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012
{COM(2017) 256 final}
{SWD(2017) 211 final}
{SWD(2017) 212 final}
{SWD(2017) 214 final}
EN
EN
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Annexes 1 to 10
Contents
ANNEX 1:
ANNEX 2:
ANNEX 3:
ANNEX 4:
ANNEX 5:
ANNEX 6:
ANNEX 7:
ANNEX 8:
ANNEX 9:
PROCEDURAL INFORMATION............................................................ 79
SYNOPSIS REPORT OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION .................. 86
EVALUATION ......................................................................................... 94
GAP ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL ONLINE INFORMATION
AND PROCEDURES.............................................................................. 157
DETAILED PROBLEM DESCRIPTIONS ............................................ 167
DETAILED QUALITY CRITERIA ....................................................... 181
COMPARISON OF PROBLEM DRIVERS, PROBLEMS,
OBJECTIVE AND OPTIONS ................................................................ 188
SERVICES TO BE COVERED BY THE SINGLE DIGITAL
GATEWAY ............................................................................................. 189
OVERVIEW OF INITIATIVES WITH LINKS TO THE SINGLE
DIGITAL GATEWAY ............................................................................ 196
ANNEX 10: VISUAL OVERVIEW OF LINKS WITH OTHER INITIATIVES ....... 202
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Annexes 1 to 10
ANNEX 1:
1.1
PROCEDURAL INFORMATION
Identification
Lead DG:
DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW)
Agenda planning/Work programme references:
The single digital gateway is part of the
Single Market Strategy of the Commission (Upgrading the Single Market: more opportunities
for people and business, COM (2015) 550 final) and was included under reference
2017/GROW/012 in the agenda planning.
1.2
Organisation and timing
An Inter-Service Steering Group was set up early in 2016. In total, four meetings were
organised: on 24 February, 26 April, 9 November and 7 December 2016.
The following Directorates-General, Agencies and services participated in the ISSG or were
consulted: SG, SJ, COMM, EMPL, CNECT, REGIO, TAXUD, EAC, SANTE, JUST, HR,
DIGIT, BUDG, OLAF and the EDPS. The feedback received from these Directorates-General
and services has been taken into account.
The Inception Impact Assessment was published on 05/07/2016.
The ISSG of 7 December 2016 agreed to the submission of the Impact Assessment Report to
the Regulatory Scrutiny Board.
1.3
Consultation of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board:
The Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) of the European Commission assessed a draft version
of the impact assessment and issued its opinion on 20/01/2017. The Board made several
recommendations. Those were addressed in the revised IA report as follows:
RSB opinion
(B) Overall assessment and main issues
The Board gives a negative opinion, because the
report contains important shortcomings that need to
be addressed, notably the following:
(1) The report sets very high ambitions for online
information and electronic procedures without
identifying precisely what the portal should cover
and the obstacles the initiative needs to overcome to
deliver;
Follow-up
(1) New chapter 1.4 on the scope of the initiative has
been added explaining in detail the envisaged coverage
of the single digital gateway. New section 2.2.3 explains
the gaps that exist for each Member State regarding a)
information coverage, b) coverage in English, c)
procedures online and d) procedures accessible for
foreign users.
(2) Detailed explanation has been in added in section 7.3
"Benefits of the preferred option- why will it succeed"?
(2) The report does not explain why and how this
initiative will be more successful than similar earlier
initiatives;
(3) The report is unnecessarily complex in that it
does not match the problems with the objectives and
options;
(3) Annex 7 on the intervention logic includes a table
with a full overview of problem drivers, problems,
specific objectives and different options. This structure
has been followed throughout the document, in the
problem tree in section 2.1, and in chapters 4, 5 and 6.
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Annexes 1 to 10
RSB opinion
(4) The options are not true alternatives but mostly a
list of complementary measures. Their design and
articulation is confusing and does not correspond to
the five specific objectives;
Follow-up
(4) The options have been presented as three alternative
packages. An overview table is included in section 5.1.
The table includes the links with the different problems
to be addressed. New tables are included in section 7.1
linking each of the options with the specific objectives.
(5) On the basis of a gap analysis for information
coverage and online procedures, a new table with cost
estimates has been included for each of the Member
States (see Annex 4). For the overall cost estimates, an
average has been used.
1) A new chapter 1 on the context and the scope has
been added explaining the current situation (section 1.1),
the various calls from MS and stakeholders for this
initiative (section 1.2),the trends and good practices in
the MS (section 1.3 and Annex 13) and how the scope of
the initiative was defined (section 1.4).
Annex 4 includes a detailed analysis of the extensions
required in all MS both for information and for
procedures.
Annex 18 includes a full overview of the human and
financial resources currently allocated for the whole
range of existing services that will be covered by the
single digital gateway
(5) The report lists benefits and quantifies some
costs. But estimates seem to be on the low side and
are not differentiated across Member States.
(C) Adjustment requirements and other
recommendations for improvement
(1) Context and scope:
The report should clarify the background of the
initiative, outlining existing services stemming from
EU law or soft measures, as well as trends and good
practices in Member States in developing user-
centric portals illustrated by examples. It should
recall the 2015 request from seventeen Member
States to regulate in this area. In particular, it should
explain how the scope of the information services to
be covered by the single digital gateway was
determined and whether they are all relevant for the
single market. Furthermore, the impact assessment
should clarify the extensions beyond the existing
portals. The report should make clear what the
existing
Commission
and
Member
State
commitments are, in particular in terms of
resources.
(2) Problem definition:
Existing evidence should be better used, including
from the previous initiatives. Given that the gateway
focuses on improving EU level coordination and
tools and imposing legal obligations on Member
States, it should demonstrate that these two
elements will correct failure of the past and address
the main problem drivers of quality and reliability
of information and services, cost, complexity, intra-
EU divergence or lack of service orientation of
national administrations as described in the problem
tree.
(3) Intervention logic:
The report should simplify the intervention logic by
streamlining and restructuring the problem
definition, objectives and options.
(4) Options:
The report should either group key actions into
alternative packages clearly linked to the specific
objectives or identify genuine alternative actions
within each objective-area in order to eventually
identify the preferred package.
The options should include more concrete
information on covered services, and explain in
more detail the related "project plans" in terms of
their content, governance, resources and timing of
roll-out. It should be made clear what will be
required from all concerned actors – i.e. EU versus
Member States' level.
The evaluation in Annex 3 has been adapted to clarify
the problem drivers responsible for the partial success of
the existing information and assistance services. Section
7.3 describes why the legal provisions as proposed are
very likely to correct the failures of the past.
See new table in Annex 7, this logic is followed
throughout the main document.
The options have been presented in three alternative
packages. See section 5.
A new Annex 12 has been added to outline the project
plan for implementing the preferred option. The plan
also indicates in detail what is required from the
different actors.
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Annexes 1 to 10
RSB opinion
(5) Impact analysis:
The report should detail and substantiate some costs
(one-off costs, administrative burdens, compliance
costs and clarify whether funding only covers IT
costs (development and maintenance) or the full
cost of expanding and running information services
(information collection, updates, processing user’s
queries and feedbacks). The analysis of impacts
should refer to experience from existing single
market e-Government tools, risks involved, and
make realistic estimates for resource implications
both for the Commission and for different Member
States.
The criteria for comparing the options should be
clarified.
For the preferred option, the cumulative cost on the
Commission and the Member States should be
presented.
(6) Monitoring of implementation:
The report should be clearer about the project plan
for the single digital gateway, how it will be
monitored and what criteria will be used to measure
its success. Especially, expected high risk areas of
implementation should be pointed out.
Follow-up
The cost table in section 7.4.1 has been clarified to cover
these remarks.
More cost figures were obtained from some of the
Member States. They confirmed that the cost range
chosen was realistic. Nevertheless, for the overall
calculation a cost figure on the very high end has now
been used to make sure that the costs for digitalising
procedures (the main cost component) will, in any case,
not be underestimated.
Section 7.1 includes three new tables with detailed
criteria for comparing the three options.
Cost table in section 7.4.1. has been adapted accordingly.
A project plan is now included in Annex 12.
The criteria for monitoring achievement of objectives,
the exact tools for measuring this, and high risks have
been clarified in chapter 8.
In its positive opinion on 7 March 2017, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board requested further
changes. These have been addressed in the final IA report as follows:
RSB opinion
(1) Problem definition
The report should provide
more analysis and data on the size of the problem. It
should also elaborate on the potential for cost
savings and benefits for business and citizens: the
report could aggregate the data presented in section
2.2 to indicate orders of magnitude or the range of
benefits for business and citizens.
(2) Options.
Each option includes and builds upon already
existing Member State and Commission digital
services and procedures. Therefore, the
presentation of the options should make clearer
what exactly the options provide in addition to
what is not in place today. Moreover, the report
should bring out an estimate of the resources and
timing needed for the implementation of each
option.
The report does not aggregate nor compare costs
in a transparent manner. It should further
elaborate on the actual costs of the different
options for the Commission and the Member
States.
The report has clarified the criteria to assess the
options. But it should introduce a clearer link
between the ratings of the options and the
available evidence about impacts (benefits, costs,
savings, implementation issues, timing, demand,
etc.).
Follow-up
Additional supporting evidence has been added to
chapters 2.2, 2.3, annex 4 (section 4.3) and annex 5
(section 5.7). Data on potential cost savings for business
and citizens were included for each option (6.1.11,
6.2.10., 6.3.8.).
Further details have been added to each option
description.
Detailed tables listing the administrative costs (including
human resources) and savings per Member State and the
Commission have been included for each option (tables
6.3., 6.8., 6.11.). Further sections were added for each
option spelling out the time needed for implementation
and the ease of implementation. Thus, a clearer link has
been established between the ratings of the options and
the available evidence about impacts.
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RSB opinion
(3) Preferred option
Table 7.4 summarises the cost
of the preferred option. It assumes that the various
steps are either the responsibility of Member States
or of the Commission and it estimates costs
accordingly. But in practice each step is likely to
have coordination or implementation costs at both
national and EU level (e.g. 10+10 procedures or the
availability of websites in English). The overall
final costs will therefore be possibly higher, in
particular in terms of FTE necessary to develop the
SDG. This should be reflected at the subsequent
stage of finalisation of the proposal. The report
should give indications of the accuracy of the
estimates.
Follow-up
The cost table of the preferred option has been revised
and made more detailed, including on coordination and
implementation costs.
Indications of the accuracy of the estimates have been
provided.
1.4
Evidence and sources used for the IA
The impact assessment was prepared using diversified sources of information, including wide
consultation of stakeholders, input from external experts, market reviews, sources of statistics,
external studies, and surveys.
The following external studies were undertaken in support of the impact assessment:
-
-
1.5
Study about administrative formalities of important procedures and administrative
burden for businesses, Ecorys, 2017
234
Study on information and assistance needs of businesses operating cross-border within
the EU, including gap and cost analysis, Ernest & Young, 2017
235
External expertise used for the IA
EXTERNAL REFERENCES IN THE REPORT
"EU
Citizenship: Share your opinion on our common values, rights and democratic
participation",
Public consultation 2015
“Towards a Digital Single Market Act”, European Parliament
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?lang=en&reference=2015/21
47(INI)
24 Years of EU Citizenship: Removing the obstacles to full potential, ECAS (European
Citizen Action Service)
A European Single Point of Contact,
European Parliament
Digital Service Standards
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/assets/documents/digital-service-standard.pdf
Digitizing Public Sector Services, Norwegian E-government Program, 2012
EUROCHAMBRES Economic Survey 2016
https://magic.piktochart.com/output/9670584-ees2016
High-level Group on Business Services
European Parliament Report on Non-Tariff Barriers in the Single Market,
2016
2012
2016
2015
2015
2016
2013
234
235
Draft version of 5 April 2017 used for this impact assessment.
Idem.
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EXTERNAL REFERENCES IN THE REPORT
German Chambers of Commerce annual member survey, "Obstacles in the EU Single
Market for Services 2016"
German Chambers of Commerce annual member survey, "Obstacles in the EU Single
Market for Services 2015"
GPSD Business Application
Highlight findings, Netherlands Chamber of Commerce European internal market panel
survey June 2016
https://www.kvk.nl/download/Highlights%20KvK%20entrepreneurs%20panel%20Internal
%20Market%20Survey%20June%202016%20(English)_tcm109-421509.pdf
https://www.kvk.nl/download/Highlights%20KvK%20entrepreneurs%20panel%20Internal
%20Market%20Survey%20June%202016%20(English)_tcm109-421509.pdf
Ministerial Declaration on e-government, Malmö, Sweden
Commission consultation on the e-government action plan
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/public-consultation-egovernment-action-
plan-2016-2020-contributions-businesses
Mutual Recognition Regulation (764/2008),
Public consultation on mutual recognition
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8831
Report on Non-Tariff Barriers in the Single Market
- European Parliament
Report public consultation on EU Citizenship 2015, 2016
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2015_public_consultation_booklet_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/se
arch/citizenship/surveyKy/2130
Results of Council of the Regions
consultation on obstacles to investments at local and
regional level
- Secretariat of the Commission for Economic Policy (ECON)
Trade Export Helpdesk
UK Digital Efficiency Report,
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-
efficiency-report/digital-efficiency-report
World Bank, Doing Business 2016.
2012
2016
2016
2009
2016
2008
2016
2015
2016
2015
9/2016
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REPORTS COMMISSIONED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Analysis on the implementation of the Construction Products Regulation
Charter for the electronic Points of Single Contact under the Services Directive
Construction Products Regulation, Final Report, 2015 – RPA Risk and Policy Analysts for
DG GROW
Consumer Conditions Scoreboard
"Development of an EU VAT web-portal – Feasibility study of the options for
development, implementation and maintenance", Final Report, 2016 – A study carried out
by Deloitte for DG TAXUD
ECAS - Your Europe Advice survey:
http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/csdays2016---workshop-5---claire-damilano---
ecas.pdf
EU citizenship consultation 2015:
Common values, rights and democratic participation"
EU citizenship consultation EU citizenship 2016
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2016-flash-eurobarometer-430-
citizenship_en.pdf
EU Internal Market Barriers and Solutions: The Business Perspective
EU-wide digital once-only principle for citizens and businesses: Policy options and their
impacts, SMART 2015/0062, GNK Consult et al.
Evaluation of Internal Market Legislation for Industrial Products,
Centre for Strategic and
Evaluation Services
Evaluation of the European Consumer Centres Network
(ECC-Net), report by CPEC
(CIVIC Consulting, Van Dijk Management Consultants, GHK) for DG SANTE
Flash Eurobarometer 413: Future of Europe
TNS Political & Social
Flash Eurobarometer 421: Internationalisation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises,
TNS Political & Social
Flash Eurobarometer 430,
European Union Citizenship, TNS Political & Social
"Future-proofing
eGovernment for the Digital Single Market – An assessment of digital
public service delivery in Europe",
Capgemini, IDC, Sogeti and Politecnico di Milano.
Background Report prepared for the Directorate General for Communications Networks,
Content and Technology.
High-Level Group on Business Services, Final Report
Internationalisation of European SMEs, Final Report, European Commission 2010
Performance of the Points of Single Contact
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/points_of
_single_contact/index_en.htm#maincontentSec2
Special Eurobarometer 425, Patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare in the European
Union, 2015.
Study on Analysis of the Needs for Cross-Border Services and Assessment of the
Organisational, Legal, Technical and Semantic Barriers,
Final Report, Capgemini, Tech4i2,
Time.lex, Universiteit van Antwerpen, European Commission 2013.
2015
2015
2016
2015
2016
2015
2016
2015
2016
2014
2011
2014
2015
2016
2015
2014
2010
2016
2015
2013
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Annexes 1 to 10
REPORTS COMMISSIONED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
The e-government benchmark report, Delivering the European Advantage? ‘How European
governments can and should benefit from innovative public services’
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/eu-egovernment-report-2014-shows-usability-
online-public-services-improving-not-fast
Capgemini, Rand Europe, SOGETI, IDC, Danish
Technological Institute.
The European Commission eGovernment Benchmark 2015: More Digital Transformation
of European public services needed to drive the EU Digital Single Market – Capgemini
https://www.capgemini.com/news/the-european-commission-egovernment-benchmark-
2015-more-digital-transformation-of-european
Inventory of Contact Points (PCP, PCPC), Ecorys
Study about administrative formalities of important procedures and administrative burden
for businesses, Ecorys
(ongoing).
2014
2015
2017
2017
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ANNEX 2:
2.1
S
YNOPSIS REPORT OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION
Overview of the consultation process
The overall consultation process on the single digital gateway (SDG) started in November
2015 and closed in December 2016.
It included a dedicated stakeholders' workshop, an online public consultation targeting
businesses, citizens and public authorities, meetings with stakeholder representatives, as well
as exchanges with Member States (MS). Considering the scope of and responses to these
activities it was decided not to launch a specific consultation targeting SMEs and start-ups.
The results of the consultation process constitute a key source of information and evidence for
the impact assessment of the single digital gateway. The main outcomes of each consultation
activity are analysed below.
2.2
2.2.1
Results of the consultation activities
Conclusions from the single digital gateway stakeholders' workshop
A dedicated workshop on the single digital gateway was organised in March 2016 in Brussels.
Participants included representatives of the Points of Single Contact (PSCs), chambers of
commerce and national authorities.
Participants were presented with ideas concerning the development of the single digital
gateway and asked to express their views and experience concerning the main issues.
In the participants' views, many problems exist in terms of access to information, availability
of e-procedures and access to assistance services. They appear to be due to gaps in legislation,
a lack of information or assistance, as well as unsatisfactory implementation by national and
local authorities.
2.2.2
Online information on applicable EU and national rules
Participants claimed that it is complicated, costly and burdensome for businesses to make use
of their Single Market rights, whether it relates to establishing, providing services or selling
goods across borders. Either there is no online information or where it exists, it is difficult to
find or understand, mostly due to lack of alternative languages and the widespread use of
jargon. Moreover, when only general information is offered, it cannot be applied to a
particular case. Participants recommended using high quality standards for online
information. The content and presentation of information should be constantly improved on
the basis of user feedback.
2.2.3
E-procedures to comply with national rules
Participants pointed out that it is very difficult to use e-procedures across borders. Although
some Member States have made impressive progress in terms of e-government domestically,
the recognition of foreign e-Signature and eIDs is still very limited. As a consequence, access
to e-procedures for foreign users is impossible.
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2.2.4
Services for personalised assistance and advice
Access to assistance and problem-solving services is still limited due to low awareness of
their existence and to language obstacles. In the participants' views, a useful single digital
gateway should offer personalised information services and assistance in both the national
language and in English, with the response in a reasonably short time.
2.2.5
Input from the online public consultation
The public consultation was open from 28 August 2016, until 28 November 2016. Target
groups were businesses (including companies, self-employed and business representative
organisations), citizens (including private individuals, organisations representing citizens or
consumers and academics) and public authorities.
Table 2.1: Distribution of respondents
Type of respondent
Self-employed
Company
Of which:
-
-
SME (1 to 249 employees)
Firm with more than 250 employees
87
7
35
162
147
11
8
166
39
39
367
10%
100%
45%
10%
45%
40%
3%
2%
93% of respondent companies
7% of respondent companies
10%
N° of answers
33
94
% of answers
9%
26%
Business representative organisation
Total for business category
Private individual
Organisation representing citizens /
consumers
Academic / research institution
Total for citizens
Public authority (including government)
Total for Public authority (including
government)
TOTAL NUMBER OF REPLIES
A detailed analysis of the results is available in Annex 15 of the IA.
It highlighted a strong consensus among business and citizens around the importance of the
main pillars in terms of content of the single digital gateway, notably:
-
the need for online information about rules and procedures in other EU countries: 93%
of business respondents and 92% of citizens respondents consider it very important or
important;
access to e-procedures: 94% of business respondents and 92 % of citizens respondents
consider it very important or important;
Access to services providing assistance upon request: 88% of business respondents
and 87% of citizen respondents consider it very important or important.
-
-
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Online information on applicable EU and national rules
Businesses and citizens expressed very similar concerns with regards to
online information on
applicable EU and national rules. Most respondents in both categories would use the internet
as the first source of information on these issues (74%
of businesses
and 80%
of citizens).
Most of them have tried to find such information online
(78% and 70% respectively) but state
that it was difficult (80% and 60% respectively). The main difficulties for both groups are the
lack of findability (48% and 43% respectively), the quality of the information (40% in both
cases) and the language in which the information was presented (24% and 13% respectively).
This is reflected in the opinions of respondents concerning quality criteria for online
information. For both categories, the top three elements are that information should be
findable (82% and 72% respectively), relevant, practical and up-to-date (77% and 69%
respectively) and available in another EU language (72% and 64% respectively). 91% of
responding businesses and 87% of responding citizens can understand information in a
different EU language, the most common one being English (88% and 78% respectively),
followed by French and German.
Being up-to-date, being run by an official authority and containing contact details to be
considered trustworthy re considered the three most important indicators of trustworthiness
for a website by both groups of respondents.
When it comes to improving information provision specifically for cross-border users
respondents consider to a great extent that it should be mandatory for authorities to provide
minimum information for citizens to carry out cross-border activities (80% in both cases) and
that this information should be provided in at least one other EU language (77% and 72%
respectively). The most effective means to prevent information gaps
is for national authorities
in each EU country to provide all (77% of business and 63% of citizens consider it very
effective) or at least minimum information necessary for cross-border users (68% of
businesses consider it very effective) and in at least one other language (72% and 63% of
businesses and citizens respectively consider it very effective). Most public authorities
consider that minimum information is already being provided (50%,), while only 5% consider
it unfeasible or too costly. Most of them consider it challenging but feasible to provide all
information needed for cross-border activities (50%), information in a centralised EU
database (48%) and information in at least one other EU language.
As far as existing national sources of information for rules and procedures applying to
products and services are concerned, a majority of businesses (81%) would be in favour of
merging the contact points for goods and services. This could be a realistic option for
respondent public authorities, 70% of which consider it desirable or very desirable, despite
considering this integration difficult or somewhat difficult (28% and 48% respectively).
E-procedures to comply with national rules
About half of responding businesses and citizens have tried carrying out an e-procedure in
another EU/EEA country. The main problems faced by businesses are the use of too much
jargon, the lack of full transactionality and the need to translate or certify documents. For
citizens the main problems are the lack of full transactionality, the lack of findability of the
procedure and problems with the languages available. Issues relating to languages and
documents provision were identified as the most urgent to address by both groups of
respondents.
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The most important quality elements of e-procedures for both groups are the online
transactionality of procedures (69% of businesses and 72% of citizens), the ease of navigation
and presence of step-by-step guidance (80% and 72% respectively), the possibility to carry
out the procedure in at least another EU language (65% and 67% respectively) and the
presence of a helpdesk (51% and 63% respectively).
The three priority procedures to be put online for businesses are 1) registration of business
activity, 2) VAT registration and 3)VAT return, while for citizens they are 1) requesting or
renewing an ID or passport, 2) requesting the recognition of professional qualifications and 3)
registering a change of address.
When asked which actions would help in improving the provision of e-procedures,
respondents agree that it should be mandatory to make procedures available in at least another
EU language (78% of businesses, 73% of citizens and 55% of public authorities) and that at
least the most important (67%, 69% and 70% respectively) or any procedures relevant for
cross-border users required under future European law (69%, 67% and 48% respectively)
should mandatorily be fully online.
Making the availability of at least one foreign language (77% and 67% respectively) the full
transactionality of any relevant procedure required under future EU law (69% of citizens) or
at least the most important procedures (65% of businesses) mandatory are considering as the
most effective measures in encouraging the transition to e-procedures. Half of the responding
public authorities consider these actions as challenging but feasible, the other half being split
between those that consider that such procedures are already in place and those that consider
them unfeasible or unnecessary.
Most public authorities see their transition to e-government as neutral (50%) or positive
(30%). They are evenly split among those that consider making more procedures available
online, and in that case they would be fully transactional in 83% of cases and they would be in
place over the coming two years, and those that do not.
Services for personalised assistance and advice
Respondents were asked about the most important quality criteria for personalised assistance
services and flagged that replies should be quick (70% of businesses and 63% of citizens),
answer the specific question/query (75% and 79% respectively), be reliable and legally sound
(69% and 60% respectively), clear, simple and in non-legalistic language (64% of businesses),
services should be able to receive and process queries in a foreign language (68% and 58%
respectively) and users should be able to access the service through different channels (35%
of citizens).
Feedback mechanism
A majority of citizens (76%) and businesses (55%) would be willing to give feedback on their
experience with the Single Market, so as to orient policy-making.
2.2.6
Meetings and exchanges with business and citizens stakeholders
Several meetings with stakeholders have been organised.
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Key inputs include:
-
-
-
The hearing "EU Citizenship in practice" in March 2016;
Discussion at the Annual SME Assembly in Luxembourg in November 2015;
discussion with the SME Envoys in June and October 2016;
Consultations with several organisations representing business and consumers on a
bilateral basis throughout 2016 (Eurochambres, Eurocommerce, BUSINESSEUROPE,
national chambers of commerce, CEA-PME, Startup City Alliance Europe, etc.), as
well as some businesses operating in most EU countries;
Discussions at Commission expert groups, including those on e-government, on the
right to free movement of persons, on the right of unrepresented citizens to consular
protection abroad, and the EU Citizenship Inter-Service Group;
Discussions at Commission expert groups and networks such as the committee on
horizontal questions concerning trade in processed agricultural products, the REFIT
platform, the Single Market Forum, the implementation of the services directive expert
group, the Small Business Act regular meetings;
Position papers sent by business and consumers associations in reply to the online
public consultation;
Presentation and discussion at expert groups of existing tools, including Your Europe
Editorial Board, Your Europe Advice, SOLVIT network, EU-GO network (Points of
Single Contact), Europe Direct Contact Centres etc.
Online information on applicable EU and national rules
-
-
-
-
2.2.7
Stakeholder meetings have confirmed that information about applicable rules when operating
abroad is needed and difficult to find.
One of the Centres for European Consumers highlights that MS should provide all the
information necessary for citizens to engage in cross-border business or private activities and
that information should be provided in at least one foreign language.
Some business stakeholders point out that the information provided needs to be sufficient to
legally engage in cross-border activities, including detailed technical and regulatory
requirements applying to testing and reporting, as well as information on taxation and social
security, amongst others.
They have also stressed that information, besides being findable, should be of high quality,
complete, reliable and updated. It also needs to be trustworthy so that users can rely on its
legal value and accuracy.
Eurochambres contributed results of an internal survey that identified top single market
obstacles and proposed solutions. Among the main obstacles were the inaccessibility of
information on rules and requirements (81%) and different national product/service rules
(81%).
A big company present in almost all MS pointed out that the mapping of legal requirements
applying to their products in a new country takes at least 2 years before starting operations.
They devote considerable resources to this process.
In their position papers, various business organisations (e.g. Eurocommerce, European
Roundtable of Industrialists, and BusinessEurope) consider it more useful to streamline all
online information tools under one single umbrella. Some encourage a common architecture
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for information across Member States. This will assist information providers in identifying
the information they are obliged to make accessible and facilitate the search process for users.
E-procedures to comply with national rules
Most business stakeholders argue that all procedures should be fully available online,
avoiding a waste of resources in terms of time and money. Some are willing to accept
exceptions only when security is at stake.
Some business associations' regret that only a limited number of procedures are available for
online completion and only for certain sectors which can be found on current PSCs. They
encourage the linking of contact points in order to make them more useful and efficient. Some
stakeholders suggest that the Commission should coordinate and enforce shared compulsory
quality criteria by Member States and improved interoperability between national portals
through cross-border e-signatures and user-friendly eIDs.
Some stakeholders highlighted that local authority permits are hard to obtain electronically,
due to incompatibility among systems.
Some businesses would find it useful to have a glossary to help them find the authority in
charge of a specific procedure in another country, since competences are often distributed in
different ways.
A majority of business representatives support the idea of common forms and more
harmonisation across MS for e-procedures and rules. The layout and navigation of the single
digital gateway should fall under this compliance.
Procedures identified as a priority for cross-border transactionality by BusinessEurope are:
company establishment, fiscal registration, submission of tax forms and e-procurement.
Services for personalised assistance and advice
SMEs associations have highlighted the need for good quality assistance services, in
particular for finding and understanding national requirements. Even bigger businesses have
highlighted that affordable assistance should be made available to guide users through all
steps of their cross-border endeavour, to ensure compliance with local requirements.
Representatives of smaller sectors argue that they do not have national associations that could
help them expand to new markets.
Most of the consulted stakeholders stressed that assistance services should be available in at
least one language that is commonly understood across Member States, e.g. English. Some
even suggest a shared European electronic service providing answers from a country in all
languages.
2.2.8
Consultation with Member State administrations
Member States have been consulted through the Expert Group on Services Directive, the
Mutual Recognition Committee, as well as through bilateral meetings with national
authorities and their representation offices in Brussels. Some MS have also submitted position
papers in reply to the online public consultation.
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In addition, 17 Member States have issued a position paper calling for a network of digital
single gateways (fully functioning e-government portals) to help business to start up, scale up
and trade across borders by providing all the information needed to operate in another
Member State. They also support the idea that businesses should only have to go through one
digital process to set up and operate anywhere in the EU.
2.2.9
Governance of the single digital gateway
Most MS argue for a clear distribution of responsibilities between the national level and the
EU. All respondents have highlighted that content ownership and management should be a
national responsibility. Most of them would like the European Commission to take a strong
coordination role, aiming at the definition of objectives in terms of updates, content,
usefulness, etc. Some support the creation of a stronger coordination body compared to that
existing for the EUGO network, for example. Many support the idea of enforcement measures
when agreed quality standards are lacking. MS also stressed the need to keep their autonomy
when it comes to national initiatives.
MS have also pointed out the need to further integrate initiatives and portals at EU level.
Most stakeholders in this category are in favour of collecting data and user feedback for
improving services.
Online information on applicable EU and national rules
Most MS are in favour of providing basic information concerning cross-border operations.
A majority of MS stress the importance of quality and user-friendliness of the websites that
will be part of the single digital gateway and support the proposal to use a quality label. Most
also support the idea of merging or linking existing points of contact and of mandating
information provision in at least another commonly used EU language.
E-procedures to comply with national rules
It was observed that putting procedures online requires substantial investments, which
sometimes slows down their adoption. Nevertheless, some Member States have pointed out
that when ensuring an efficient distribution of responsibilities, the single digital gateway
should lead to more efficient communication and data-sharing among the European
Commission and MS. This will allow identification and further rationalisation of the most
used procedures across MS. Some MS favour a digital-by-default principle for future EU
legislation and its national implementation.
A majority of MS stressed the importance of interoperability and the challenges posed by
identification, authentication and electronic signature.
Services for personalised assistance and advice
Some Member States are concerned about the impact that the creation of a single digital
gateway can have on the investment already made for the creation of the PSCs and other
contact points as well as chambers of commerce portals. Most would prefer the single digital
gateway to build on existing systems, so that past investments are not lost, but rather
capitalized on.
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2.3
Conclusions
The main elements that emerge from the consultation are the need to tackle the quantity and
quality of single market-related information, e-procedures and assistance services available, a
broad support for the aims of the initiative and a high level of interest concerning the concrete
implementation by stakeholders.
Businesses and citizens consider that having access to all applicable information would be
useful to make informed decisions. Member States consider that minimum information is
already being offered and that it would be challenging to offer all information online.
A majority of respondents would like to carry out cross-border procedures online. They
consider it important to remove some of the remaining obstacles in the single market.
Member States have concerns with regards to feasibility, notably regarding authentication and
mutual recognition of e-signatures and regarding potential cost of putting all procedures
online.
In the participants' views, a useful single digital gateway should offer personalised
information services and assistance in both the national language and in English, within a
short response time. The quality of the information and services is crucial for all stakeholders
involved.
Some Member States are concerned about the impact that the creation of a single digital
gateway can have on the investment already made for the creation of the PSCs and other
contact points and chambers of commerce portals. Most of them would like to make sure that
the single digital gateway builds on the existing systems.
These results are fully reflected in the proposed preferred option presented in the impact
assessment, which aims at striking a delicate balance between achieving an ambitious project
that meets the expectations of users while taking into account issues linked to technical
obstacles and limited resources available among MS.
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ANNEX 3:
E
VALUATION
Ex-Post evaluation of existing (regulatory and non-regulatory) framework of relevance
to the single digital gateway
3.1
Purpose and scope of the evaluation
The purpose of this annex is to summarise the results of existing evaluations, studies and
public consultations insofar as they relate to the kind of services that are of relevance for the
impact assessment prepared for a possible future single digital gateway. This annex will list
and present the conclusions of these documents that cover nine different instruments. These
instruments are regularly evaluated individually.
The evaluation will focus on a number of elements that are particularly important for
businesses and citizens with respect to their rights and obligations concerning the Single
Market: information, assistance and problem-solving services, online procedures, quality
criteria for such services, (online) findability and visibility of services, as well as one element
that is important for the Commission as guardian of the Single Market, namely the collection
of case feedback to inform policy making. It will not consider other elements or
functionalities of the instruments.
This evaluation aims at analysing how these services are performing together, and to what
extent they are reaching the objectives to deliver to businesses and citizens the information,
assistance and procedures they need in relation with their EU rights and obligations. In turn,
this contributes to a better functioning Single Market, increased cross-border activities, more
competition, jobs and growth.
The table on the next page shows which elements of the gateway the nine services cover, and
where they are situated (national/EU level) as well as how they are funded.
(More detailed information on funding and resources of each instrument is provided in
annex 18.)
The results of this evaluation will provide the basis for an impact assessment accompanying a
future legislative initiative for a "single digital gateway". This initiative intends to streamline,
complete and improve the existing instruments and to propose a feedback tool for the
comprehensive collection and analysis of feedback from citizens and businesses.
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Table 3.1
Elements assessed
Responsibility
Instruments covered
Points of Single Contact
Product Contact Points
Product Contact Points for
Construction
SOLVIT
Your Europe
Your Europe Advice
National
National
National
National
EC + national
EC
National
National
National
National
EC
EC
EC with
national co-
funding
EC with
national co-
funding
EC with
national co-
funding
x
x
Funding
Information
(upfront on
website)
x
Assistance
(tailor-made,
on request)
x
x
x
x
Online
procedures
x
Online
findability
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Quality criteria
Case feedback
x
x
x
x
x
x
Enterprise Europe Network
National
x
x
x
x
EURES
National
x
x
x
x
European Consumer Centres
Network
National
x
x
x
x
x
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3.2
Description of the existing framework and its objectives
This section presents the main instruments already in place at EU and national level in terms
of what their frameworks foresee: general aims and – where applicable - for each the elements
of the potential future single digital gateway: information, assistance, online procedures,
quality criteria, findability and case feedback to policy-makers. The intervention logic in
appendix 2 and the overview on page 4 provide further details. Taken together, the evaluated
services provide:
-
-
-
-
online information about on all relevant EU and national rights, obligations and rules
applicable to EU citizens and businesses in the (broad) Single Market Area;
assistance or problem-solving services which EU citizens and businesses can refer to with
Single Market-related questions or problems about rights, rules or procedures;
access to procedures established at EU or national level for the implementation of (broad)
Single Market rights, obligations and rules;
a register of all queries and problems handled, that can be used for policy-making.
Information on the implementation and usage of the instruments can be found in appendix 3.
3.2.1
The
236
Points of Single Contact under the Services Directive
Services
Directive
aims to contribute to a genuine Internal Market in Services so that businesses and
consumers can make full use of the opportunities it presents and benefit from the fundamental
freedoms guaranteed in Articles 49 and 56 of the Treaty. Full implementation of the Directive
should remove red tape and significantly facilitate the establishment of service providers both
at home and abroad. It should also facilitate the cross-border (temporary) provision of
services. The Directive was adopted in 2006 and its transposition deadline was December
2009. The Services Directive contains provisions on information, assistance, online
procedures and quality.
Information
The Directive established "Points of single contact" (PSCs): e-government portals for
entrepreneurs active in the service sector, which should assist businesses by providing
comprehensive information on the procedures necessary to offer and provide services, and by
allowing them to complete formalities online. Article 7 "Right to information" refers to
information that Member States should provide through the Points of Single Contact, such as
applicable requirements, contact details of competent authorities and of associations or
organisations for practical assistance, available means of redress and means of accessing
public registers and databases. Article 21 lists information recipients can obtain in their
Member State of residence.
Assistance
The Services Directive stipulates in Article 7 that Member States shall ensure that service
providers and recipients can receive, at their request, assistance from the competent
authorities. Article 21 allows Member States to confer responsibility for this task on the points
236.
Directive 2006/123/EC
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of single contact or any other body, such as centres of the European Consumer Centres
Network, consumer associations or Euro Info Centres.
Online procedures
The Services Directive's Article 8 establishes electronic procedures, through the relevant point
of single contact and with the relevant competent authorities. Electronic means have to be
available for the whole administrative process, from the service provider's initial submission
of documents to the final reply, if required, from the relevant competent authority. Documents
from other Member States generally have to be accepted without requiring production of the
documents in their original form or as a certified copy or a certified translation (Art 5(3)).
Quality criteria
The Services Directive contains a large number of quality criteria applying to information and
online procedures. Information needs to be provided in a clear and unambiguous manner,
easily accessible at a distance and by electronic means, and kept up to date.
Member States shall ensure that the PSCs and the competent authorities respond as quickly as
possible to any request for information or assistance. PSCs are encouraged to make the
information available in other Community languages.
Authorisation procedures and formalities shall provide applicants with a guarantee that their
application will be processed as quickly as possible and, in any event, within a reasonable
period which is fixed and made public in advance. The period shall run only from the time
when all documentation has been submitted. When justified by the complexity of the issue,
the time period may be extended once, by the competent authority, for a limited time. The
extension and its duration shall be duly motivated and shall be notified to the applicant before
the original period has expired.
All applications for authorisation shall be acknowledged as quickly as possible. In the case of
an incomplete application, the applicant shall be informed as quickly as possible of the need
to supply any additional documentation, as well as of any possible effects on deadlines. When
a request is rejected because it fails to comply with the required procedures or formalities, the
applicant shall be informed of the rejection as quickly as possible.
Additional quality criteria, though of a voluntary nature, were included in the "PSC
Charter"
237
of 2013. These cover the quality and availability of information provided on
PSCs, completion of e-procedures, accessibility of PSCs for cross-border users, and usability
of PSCs.
Findability
The Points of Single Contact should provide procedures "at a distance and by electronic
means". In practice, all Member States have set up online (e-government) PSCs. A central
(Commission-level) website
238
provides links to all of them.
237
238
Charter for the electronic Points of Single Contact under the Services Directive,
http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/14950/attachments/1/translations
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/eu-go/index_en.htm
2013,
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3.2.2
Product Contact Points under Regulation (EC) 764/2008
The Regulation
239
aims to guarantee the free movement of goods in the internal market, in the
absence of harmonised rules. It lays down procedures to be followed by Member States when
denying market access to a product lawfully marketed in a Member State. Another goal is to
increase awareness of the mutual recognition principle, which allows for products lawfully
marketed in another Member State to be sold in other Member States, despite the fact that this
product complies with different national technical rules, ensuring legal certainty for national
authorities and businesses and improving administrative cooperation between national
authorities.
Assistance
As the application of the mutual recognition principle is not automatic, certain national
technical regulations may prevail. Economic operators may wish to know about the applicable
national rules before entering a market. The Regulation contains the obligation for Member
States to establish national Product Contact Points ("PCPs"). These provide, upon request,
information on the national technical rules applicable to a specific product, the contact details
of the competent authorities in charge of supervising the implementation of the technical rules
in question and remedies available in case of dispute between the economic operator and the
competent authority. The scope of the PCPs is limited to the non-harmonised sector
240
. They
therefore qualify as "assistance services".
Quality criteria
The Regulation contains a limited number of quality criteria, mostly voluntary. The only
"hard" criterion is that PCPs should reply to requests within 15 working days of receiving
them. According to a recital, PCPs should be adequately equipped and resourced, and are
encouraged to make the information available online and in other Community languages. The
provision of information in the scope of the Regulation should be free of charge. For
additional information PCPs may charge proportionate fees.
Findability
Recital 30 encourages Member States to make the information available through a website –
but this is voluntary. The Commission publishes and keeps up-to-date the list online with the
contact details of the PCPs. 25 Member States have set up PCP websites.
Case feedback
No information is available on whether PCPs are recording the enquiries (and replies sent) in
a database. However, Member States need to report to the Commission on this. A study
241
suggests that some PCPs do not, but no details are available.
239
240
241
Regulation 764/2008
As opposed to the (EU) harmonised sector, for which the PCPs are not responsible.
Evaluation of the Application of the mutual recognition principle in the field of goods, Technopolis, 2015,
section 5.3.1.
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3.2.3
Product Contact Points for Construction under Regulation 305/2011
The aim of the Construction Products Regulation
242
(CPR) is to facilitate the free movement
of construction products.
Assistance
Member States had to set up Product Contact Points for Construction ("PCPCs") that should
provide information on technical rules for construction products, contact details of authorities
and information on remedies at the request of the economic operator. They cover the
harmonised and non-harmonised sector. They qualify as "assistance services" for the purposes
of the single digital gateway, as they offer a personalised service. A website with information
is voluntary.
Quality criteria
The quality provisions for the PCPCs have been modelled on those applying to the PCPs
under the Mutual Recognition Regulation (MRR) that was adopted three years earlier. For
example, the 15 working-day deadline also applies to requests made to the PCPCs. However,
many of the voluntary quality recommendations of the MRR have been weakened or dropped.
The only quality criterion that the CPR contains and the MRR doesn't is that information shall
be provided using "transparent and easily understandable terms".
Findability
Whereas the MRR encouraged the provision of information through a website and the use of
other Community languages, this is missing from the CPR. The Commission publishes a list
online with the contact details of the PCPCs. 25 Member States have created PCPC websites.
Case feedback
No information is available on whether PCPCs are recording the enquiries (and replies sent)
in a database.
3.2.4
SOLVIT
SOLVIT
243
was launched on the basis of a Commission Recommendation in July 2002
244
and
has developed significantly since, most lately through a Commission Recommendation of
2013
245
(replacing the initial 2001 Recommendation). SOLVIT is as an informal problem
solving network within Member States, coordinated by the Commission. The general
objective of SOLVIT is to deliver fast, effective and informal solutions to problems
individuals and businesses encounter when their EU rights in the internal market are being
denied by public authorities and to contribute to a better functioning Single Market by
242
243
244
245
Regulation 305/2011
This evaluation assesses SOLVIT only for the purposes of the 'single digital gateway' initiative. For a
current evaluation on SOLVIT based on the 5 evaluation criteria reference should be made to the evaluative
annex accompanying the initiative on the 'Action Plan to reinforce SOLVIT'.
Commission Recommendation of 7 December 2001 on principles for using "SOLVIT" – the Internal
Market Problem Solving Network.
Commission Recommendation of 17 September 2013 on the principles governing SOLVIT (2013/461/EU),
OJ L 249, 19.9.2013, p. 10–15 and 2001/893/EC of 7 December 2001.
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fostering and promoting better compliance with Union law. The 2013 Recommendation sets
out specific qualitative objectives to achieve the general purpose of SOLVIT that relate to
three main areas: (i) the handling, follow-up and reporting of 'structural problems' linked to
breach of EU law by the Member States, (ii) the quality of the service and (iii) the use of
SOLVIT.
SOLVIT aims to find solutions within 10 weeks – starting on the day the case is taken on by
the SOLVIT centre in the country where the problem occurred. Submitting a case to SOLVIT
doesn’t suspend any formal or administrative deadlines under national law.
The role of the Commission is to coordinate and facilitate the network, while the actual
problem- solving is done by the national SOLVIT centres. The Commission provides informal
legal advice at the request of SOLVIT centres and legal training at regular training and
networking events with the SOLVIT centres.
Assistance
SOLVIT is an assistance service, open to both citizens and businesses and is free of charge. It
helps citizens and businesses when they encounter a cross-border problem caused by a
potential breach of Union law by a public authority.
Quality criteria
The SOLVIT Recommendation contains several quality criteria for the service offered.
SOLVIT centres should be available by telephone and email; should reply promptly and
respect deadlines which are detailed in the Recommendation. When a problem cannot be
taken up as a SOLVIT case, applicants should be given the reasons and advised of another
possible course of action, including sign-posting or transferring the problem to another
network or competent authority. Applicants should be informed of the informal nature of
SOLVIT, the procedures and timeframes that apply and that SOLVIT is free of charge.
SOLVIT Centres are required to have sufficient and well-trained, multilingual staff, have
adequate legal expertise or relevant experience and should have sufficient authority within the
national administration.
In addition to the central (Commission) SOLVIT website, Member States should ensure user-
friendly information and easy access to the SOLVIT services, in particular on all relevant
websites of the public administration.
SOLVIT centres and the Commission should conduct regular quality control of cases handled.
The Commission regularly reports on the quality and performance of SOLVIT
246
.
Findability
The Commission Recommendation also contains provisions on the visibility of the network.
The Commission should promote SOLVIT with European stakeholder organisations and
Union institutions and runs a SOLVIT central website
247
. Member States should ensure user-
246
247
This is done via the online Single Market Scoreboard:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/solvit/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/
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friendly information and easy access to the SOLVIT services, in particular on all relevant
websites of the public administration. They should also raise awareness about SOLVIT
amongst its stakeholders, supported by the Commission.
The main channel for findability of SOLVIT is the Your Europe portal, followed by the
cooperation with other networks and intermediary organisations.
Case feedback
SOLVIT is receiving more than 2000 eligible cases every year, which are fed into a central
database as part of the Commission IT infrastructure. The cases in the SOLVIT database are
also used for feedback on how the Single Market functions in practice. This is done through
the annual reporting and on an ad hoc basis upon request. Following the Single Market
Strategy the Commission is now exploring the possibilities to develop a more systematic
reporting in particular about the structural and recurrent issues as detected through SOLVIT
(see SOLVIT action plan of 2017).
3.2.5
Your Europe
The "Your Europe" (YE) portal has been created under the IDABC initiative
248
and was first
launched in 2005. The 2013 Commission Communication on an "Action Plan for boosting
Your Europe in cooperation with the Member States" was positively welcomed by both the
EP and the Council.
Information
The portal is part of the inter-institutional "Europa" website
249
and contains practical and user-
friendly information, in 23 languages, for citizens and businesses on rights and opportunities
in the Single Market. The portal is divided into a Citizens section and a Business section.
As it is essential for people to find out about EU rights and how to exercise them in a
particular country, Your Europe is a joint project of the Commission and the Member States.
Visitors find EU level information provided by the Commission as well as the respective
national information and implementation provided by the Member States through an Editorial
Board, if not already collected through other expert groups/networks. Your Europe is divided
up into topical sections that present EU-level content (EU rights) and national content,
including through links to Member States' pages.
Your Europe also links to relevant assistance and problem-solving services (Your Europe
Advice, Europe Direct, SOLVIT, EEC-Net, Enterprise Europe Network, etc.), other EU
portals (e.g. e-justice, Euraxess, EURES), Commission websites, national contact and
enforcement bodies, relevant forms and to relevant EU law and a few e-procedures (European
Professional Card, Online Dispute Resolution).
248
249
Decision 2004/387/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on interoperable
delivery of pan-European e-government services to public administrations, businesses and citizens
(IDABC).
http://europa.eu/youreurope
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Quality criteria
As part of the Europa platform of the Commission, Your Europe respects the corporate
"Information Providers Guide"
250
, i.e. the Europa-specific quality standards on content
(definition, drafting, SEO, …) and design (structure, layout, usability, accessibility, …). Your
Europe is a multilingual portal covering currently 23 languages
251
for the EU-level content.
Information is provided in plain language, avoiding legal and administrative jargon. The
portal is adapted for use through mobile devices and complies with corporate standards for
web accessibility.
Findability
Your Europe invests in findability of its content, mainly through search engine optimisation,
online promotion and social media activities. Further measures include interlinking with
national government webpages and promotion of Your Europe as part of EU and national
awareness-raising campaigns on issues covered by Your Europe.
3.2.6
Your Europe Advice
"Your Europe Advice" (YEA)
252
is a Europe-wide service funded and supported by the
Commission that offers citizens and businesses tailored information and advice on their EU
rights (mainly internal market rights), free of charge and in all 24 EU languages. The service
is outsourced to an external contractor that manages a network of about 65 legal experts with
EU law background and expertise and experience in national law and administration in all
Member States. YEA is mentioned in the Your Europe Action Plan of 2013. The objective of
YEA is to provide a fast, high-quality, personalised legal advice service to citizens and
businesses free of charge.
Assistance
YEA is intended to be an extension of the practical information provided on the Your Europe
portal. The Your Europe portal offers a link to YEA whenever citizens need personalised and
specialised advice. In their replies YEA advice experts also signpost to other information and
advice services, including, but not limited to, the Scadplus website, EURES, ECC Net and
other EU and national level information services. YEA has a mandate to respond to enquiries
submitted by EU or EEA citizens or their family members who are entitled to benefit from
EU rights.
Quality criteria
Citizens and businesses receive comprehensive advice within one week and are directed or
“signposted”, when appropriate, to the authority or other body (local, national or European)
best placed to solve their problem. The contract with the contractor specifies the speed of
replies to enquiries (within 72 hours), and how the deadlines are calculated. Deadline
compliance is monitored by the contractor and the Commission. A large number of quality
criteria apply to the replies. Some refer to substance, such as relevance, accuracy,
completeness, legal reference and sign-posting, where possible. Others refer to style, e.g. the
250
251
252
http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/index_en.htm
All official EU languages but Irish, the business sections also covers Norwegian.
http://europa.eu/youreurope/advice/about_en.htm
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requirement for the replies to be polite, personalized and tailor-made; in clear, simple, non-
technical and non-legalistic terms and easily understandable for "normal" citizens without
legal knowledge. The legal experts must also live up to quality criteria as regards their
qualification, experience and communication skills.
Findability
Users find YEA through links from the Your Europe portal or other assistance services with
whom YEA cooperates, such as SOLVIT and Europe Direct.
Case feedback
Apart from its core activity – provision of legal advice to citizens – the service has a number
of other functions. Among these is the provision of feedback about the cases and the problems
experienced by EU citizens in the various Member States through quarterly feedback reports
to the Commission. Enquiries are analysed and regular reports are sent to the Commission.
These reports provide an up-to-date picture of where obstacles to exercising EU rights persist.
The YEA database with more than 200 000 real life cases constitutes a wealth of information
which can be exploited by Commission services for policy shaping or impact assessments.
3.2.7
Enterprise Europe Network (EEN)
The Enterprise Europe Network was launched in February 2008 by the European
Commission. It is co-financed under COSME (Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized
Enterprises) — an EU funding programme designed to encourage the competitiveness of
European enterprises. According to the EEN call for proposals for the period 2015-2020 the
Network is established "to contribute to the objectives of the COSME programme by
facilitating access to European and international markets for European SMEs and by
providing growth-oriented integrated business and innovation support services that help
strengthen the competitiveness and sustainability of European Enterprises." The Enterprise
Europe Network is the world's largest support network for small and medium sized businesses
(SMEs) with international ambitions. It has 3,000 experts across 600 member organisations in
more than 60 countries. Member organisations include chambers of commerce and industry,
technology centres, and research institutes. These member organizations co-finance the
network's activities. The Commission Executive Agency for Small and Medium-Sized
Enterprises (EASME) takes care of operational and financial matters concerning the
management of the network for the Commission.
Assistance
The Network helps SMEs innovate and grow internationally. It provides international
business expertise with local knowledge in three areas: partnership services
253
, innovation
support (including important services supported under the Horizon 2020 programme) and
other advisory services. , Part of the Network's advisory services are of relevance to the single
digital gateway, in particular practical and customised advice on doing business in another
country and national legal requirements applying to the marketing of goods and the provision
of services, advice on intellectual property and information and advice on EU law and
standards and the Internal Market more generally. SMEs can contact domestic EEN partners,
253
The Network manages Europe’s largest database of business cooperation opportunities.
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which get in touch with relevant EEN partners in the target country and receive information
and advice from them.
The EEN also signposts to other suitable providers of SME-oriented services. This is called
the "no wrong door" principle.
Quality
criteria
The performance of the network is monitored through "Key Performance Indicators".
Performance is defined as growth in turnover and employment of SMEs. More specific
guidelines apply to advisory services, as specified in the EEN's "Achievement Guidelines on
Advisory Services Outcomes" of June 2015. As a starting-point, the network partner should
agree an "advisory plan" with the client. This plan should be a short and clear document
defining the actions to address the gaps and needs, identify other service providers where
relevant, and schedule the actions. All provided services need to be documented in the
Customer Relations Management or internal documentation. This could cover emails
exchange and documentation forwarded to the client, client confirmation on the advisory plan
implementation, etc.
All achievements must be reported on in the achievement report, to be submitted to EASME's
Achievements Database in the Network IT Platform. The achievements report has to contain a
short section on the advice given and the advisory plan, how the plan was implemented and
what initial and longer-term impacts on the client are expected. The documentation of outputs
is to be kept at the premises of the Network partners and should be available to EASME or
auditors upon request. Quality checks are performed regularly to verify the quality and
eligibility of registered achievement reports. The Network will assess the impact of the
implemented advisory plan through the impact assessment procedure of the Network. The
EASME Project Adviser in charge of partner reporting can perform in-depth evaluations of
achievements and can put achievement reports on hold or reject them.
Findability
EASME, (the executive agency dealing with operational and financial aspects of the network)
runs a central website that guides to local support services by its partners. Partner
organizations should also give visibility to the EEN brand. Your Europe enables the
submission of questions to EEN partners through an online form.
Case feedback
Enterprise Europe Network partners make use of the SME Feedback database to record
problems or cases faced by SMEs in the internal market Some broad headings are provided
254
to facilitate the analysis, and businesses are asked to quantify the loss of time and loss of
income (additional costs) caused by the problem. Businesses can also provide details on how
the problem could be solved. European Commission officials can check the database.
254
Lack of detail in the text of the European legislation/programme, national requirements in a cross border
activity avoid correct functioning of the Internal Market, severe difficulties to find European information
needed to carry out the activity, the wording of the European legislation/programme or the procedure
negatively affects in particular SMEs, and wrong interpretation at national level of a European text, other.
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3.2.8
EURES
The recently adopted Regulation (EU) 2016/589 of 13 April 2016 on a European network of
employment services (EURES), workers' access to mobility services and the further
integration of labour markets amended Regulations (EU) 492/2011
255
and 1296/2013. The
objective of this Regulation is to establish a common framework for cooperation between
Member States to bring together job vacancies and the possibility of applying for those job
vacancies and to facilitate the achievement of a balance between supply and demand in the
employment market.
The European Employment Services (EURES) was established in 1993 in order to improve
mobility in the European labour market and to strengthen the integration of employment
services of the Member States as a means to achieve this goal. The purpose of EURES is to
provide information, recruitment, matching and placement services for the benefit of workers
and employers, as well as any citizen wishing to benefit from the principle of the free
movement of workers. The network is primarily based on the public employment services
(PES) of the EU/EEA countries. Each Member State has established a National Coordination
Office (NCO) to facilitate the cooperation on its territory and with the other Member States.
Information
The member organisations of the network provide workers and employers with basic
information concerning the EURES portal, including the job-application and CV database,
and the EURES network, including contact details of relevant EURES member organisations
at national level, information on the recruitment channels that they use (e-services,
personalised services, location of contact points) and the relevant web links, in an easily
accessible and user-friendly manner.
For the purpose of publication, in particular on the EURES portal, in the interest of workers
and employers, each NCO shall make available, regularly update and disseminate in a timely
manner, information and guidance available at national level relating to the situation in the
Member State concerning: (a) living and working conditions, including general information
on social security and tax payments; (b) the relevant administrative procedures regarding
employment, and the rules applicable to workers upon taking up employment; (c) its national
regulatory framework for apprenticeships and traineeships and existing Union rules and
instruments; (d) without prejudice to point (b) of Article 17(2), access to vocational education
and training; (e) the situation of frontier workers in particular in cross-border regions; (f) post-
recruitment assistance in general and information about where to obtain such assistance
within and, if such information is available, outside the EURES network. Where appropriate,
NCOs may make available and disseminate the information in cooperation with other
information and advisory services and networks and appropriate bodies at national level.
Assistance
At both national and regional level the EURES network has an extensive human network of
advisers and assistants, which have the primary task of delivery of support services to target
255
Regulation 492/2011 obliges the Commission and the Member States to exchange vacancies and
applications for employment, share information concerning living and work conditions and background
information on the state and trends of the labour markets, and cooperate together towards the resultant
placement of workers.
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groups. More than 950 EURES advisers provide information, guidance and placement
services related to the European job market to both jobseekers and employers.
The member organisations work together on the basis of individual requests, specific projects
and in the framework of job fairs and other events to assist individual job seekers and
employers interested in mobility to match and place workers in jobs in another country.
Quality criteria
EURES member organisations need to clearly indicate to workers and employers the range of
support services they provide, where and how those services are accessible and the conditions
under which access is provided, using their information channels. That information is
published on the EURES portal. Assistance shall be free of charge and that users of EURES
have access to general information on how, when and where they can update, revise and
withdraw the data concerned.
Quality criteria also apply to the registration on the EURES portal for individual job seekers
and employers.
At the level of the member organisations, minimum common criteria (EURES Regulation,
Annex I) apply to their service delivery for them to be able to participate in the EURES
network, such as ability to provide services through one or more easily accessible channels,
with at least an internet/website of the organisation accessible; existence of or commitment to
ensuring the allocation of appropriate human resources for the respective tasks to be fulfilled;
commitment to ensuring quality standards on staff and commitment to use the EURES trade
mark only for services and activities relating to the EURES network.
Performance of the EURES network is being monitored through the collection and analysis of
quantitative and qualitative data at national level by Member States, including, where
available, through customer satisfaction surveys. The Regulation provides a procedural
framework for establishing uniform detailed specifications for the collection and analysis of
the data.
Findability
The EURES network consists of two pillars: the portal and the (human) network in the
Member States. Your Europe signposts to EURES whenever relevant. Communication
activities are carried out to increase the visibility of EURES and disseminate information
about labour market conditions and mobility opportunities.
3.2.9
European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net)
The European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) aims at promoting consumer
confidence by advising citizens on their rights as consumers and providing easy access to
redress in cross border cases. Its objective is to help unlock the full economic potential of the
internal market. ECC-Net is a network of 30 offices in the EU Member States, Norway and
Iceland, providing free-of-charge help and advice to consumers on their cross-border
purchases, whether online or on the spot within these 30 countries.
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Information
ECC-Net centres individually have very informative websites on consumer rights. They also
undertake promotional activities such as information campaigns, events etc. to raise
awareness of the Network and consumer rights.
Assistance
ECC-Net centres respond to specific consumer enquiries about their rights when shopping
across borders, and assist consumers with complaints and disputes. They advise on consumer
rights and assist citizens to resolve a complaint against a trader based in another EU country,
Iceland or Norway with the aim of achieving amicable outcomes. They also redirect citizens
to an appropriate body if the ECC-Net cannot help.
Quality criteria
Certain quality criteria on complaint handling exist, which the ECCs try to respect. These are
regulated in the ECC-Net case handling protocol, which is an internal document, making the
commitment neither formal nor public. These quality criteria also serve as the benchmark for
evaluating the efficiency of the centres.
Findability
A central ECC-Net website on Europa guides users to local support in their countries. Your
Europe signposts users to ECC whenever relevant.
An ECC-Net Travel App provides legal knowledge on consumer rights and language support
in 23 EU languages plus Norwegian and Icelandic.
Case feedback
The ECC have a database for collecting complaint information on cross-border complaints.
This database provides information on cross border consumer complaints for the EEA
(including what are the problems, what are the most frequent problems, on which purchasing
channel, which economic sector and which law applies).
The ECCs' capacity to act as an observatory of trends and issues arising in the Single Market
is based on statistics derived from their case databases, and from specific studies they
regularly undertake. For example, the 2014 ECC study on the non-discrimination clause in the
Services Directive was an important piece of evidence used in the Commission's policy
combatting geo-blocking. The study on the implementation of the small claims procedure
contributed to its reform. Several studies on passenger rights were used by DG MOVE as
input to a revision of those rights.
3.3
Methodology and evidence base
This evaluation builds on Commission and commissioned evaluations and studies
256
over the
past five years and related to the tools screened, as well as an impact assessment (for the 2016
EURES Regulation) carried out in the recent past. Up-to-date data of the last (July 2016)
256
These are listed in the annex.
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Single Market Scoreboard was also used. Further evidence was drawn from several public
consultations of the Commission on: the single digital gateway (2016), the Mutual
Recognition Regulation (2016), the Services Card (2016), the Start-up initiative (2016) and
European Citizenship (2015) as well as the REFIT Platform. Stakeholder positions have also
been taken into consideration.
The existing quantitative evidence on the efficiency of the instruments is relatively scarce and
inconclusive.
3.4
Evaluation of the existing framework
This chapter will examine the available evidence for each instrument as regards the
effectiveness and efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value. On this basis,
conclusions for the overall framework will be drawn.
3.4.1
The effectiveness of the existing framework
To what extent have the instruments in place been effective in allowing citizens and
businesses to obtain relevant information, complete electronically all relevant procedures,
benefit from high quality services that are easy to find?
Points of Single Contact
Overall, the Services Directive's Points of Single Contact have been a partial success, as will
be elaborated in this section. Various analyses and studies
257
have shown the varying level of
ambition and quality of national PSCs. Weaknesses exist in terms of languages available for
completing the administrative requirements, user-friendliness, acceptance of e-signatures, in
particular from foreign users, and the extent to which they actually function as e-government
portals. Scope is also an issue, as the Services Directive does not cover certain areas, sectors
and procedures which are nevertheless of key importance to businesses, such as VAT, income
taxes, social security, labour law-related requirements and procedures.
In 2013 the Commission developed, and the High–level Group of the Competitiveness
Council endorsed, a voluntary instrument for improving the PSCs, i.e. the PSC Charter. This
was meant to serve as a guideline for those countries that intend their PSCs to go beyond that
which is legally required. It recommends that the information, procedures and assistance
provided through the PSCs take a holistic approach in terms of scope, taking into account the
businesses' needs (and not the limits of the Directive). The Charter contains a number of
quality criteria topping those of the Directive, such as accessibility of the PSCs in other
languages, the payment of relevant fees online and clarification of what is meant by user-
friendliness (e.g. FAQ, lay out, search engine, navigation, tracking tools).
257
"The functioning and usability of the Points of Single Contact under the Services Directive – State of Play
and Way Forward", Deloitte, 2012; J. Montesgudo, A. Rutkowski, D. Lorenzani, "Part 2: Assessing the
economic impact of setting up Points of Single Contact: an approximation based on the Doing Business" in
"The economic impact of the Services Directive: a first assessment following implementation", Economic
Papers No 456, June 2012; "Services Directive implementation survey – the Chambers' perspective on the
Points of Single Contact, Eurochambres, Policy Survey, 7
th
edition, January 2011; "Are the Points of Single
Contact truly making things easier for European companies? – Services Directive implementation Report,
Business Europe, November 2011.
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The most recent assessment of the performance of the Points of Single Contact was done
against the Charter criteria
258
. It showed that, while some progress had been made,
performance is still mediocre with considerable room for improvement. On most PSC portals
only a limited number of procedures are available for online completion, and only for certain
service sectors. In general and across Member States, PSC performance is clearly the weakest
when it comes to offering information and e-procedures to cross-border users. This is
explained by the incompleteness of information in other than national languages, foreign e-
IDs and means of payment not being accepted, form fields only accepting national data, and
necessity to present original paper documents or certified documents. Where certain key
procedures are offline, entrepreneurs still need to travel to the other country(ies) they want to
do business with.
The study was conducted on the basis of mystery shopping assessing four business scenarios
in 2014. For these four scenarios, the missing necessary national information was 60% for 1/3
of Member States, 50-40% for 1/3 of Member States, and 30% for 1/3 of Member States
259
.
The scenarios covered 20 national procedures. With the exception of one procedure
260
, more
than 80% of Member States did not provide even such basic information as the time
estimation for the procedure.
The underlying reasons for the weak performance with respect to the foreign user are that
PSCs are primarily being used for a domestic audience (analytics and other data prove this)
and Member States do not want to incur translation and other costs for foreign users. Foreign
users have "no voice" and are easily overlooked when national information and procedures
are designed. Thus small but effective obstacles, such as online form fields only allowing for
national data, creep in. A further major stumbling block is that the e-IDAS Regulation has not
yet been fully implemented
261
. The result is that very frequently, foreign e-IDs are not
accepted. Also, the competencies of administrative levels vary greatly across Member States.
Domestic citizens may be able to pinpoint the competent authority, but foreigners find this
very difficult without proper guidance. More generally, national administrations lack service
orientation and tend to not make the greatest effort to be user-friendly (e.g. as compared to
commercial websites and applications). Many operate in "silos" and find cooperating with
other administrations in order to offer more integrated, simpler and more user-friendly
services difficult.
The REFIT Platform Stakeholder
262
Group stated in its background comments that "often,
insufficient resources are allocated to the PSCs. (…) Member States regularly show political
commitment and dedication in Council conclusions but this is often not translated into
concrete action and improvement".
This general problem is also confirmed and highlighted by the Commission's yearly e-
government benchmark reports
263
. The assessment showed that companies that want to go
258
259
260
261
262
263
"The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter", Capgemini
and Eurochambres, June 2015.
Idem, rough outcome of mystery shopping for four business scenarios.
General registration of economic activity.
The deadline for full implementation is September 2018.
Refit Platform Opinion on the submission by the Danish Business forum and BusinessEurope on the Point
of Single Contact, 27/28 June 2016.
EE.g. 2016 report: The Business Mobility Benchmark indicates that 25% of services required of foreign
entrepreneurs to start their business in another country is completely off-line: meaning there is no
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cross-border face important linguistic and technical problems in completing administrative
requirements online. Often only rudimentary information is provided in English or other
foreign languages and online forms are merely available in local languages. Only the general
business registration can be done fully online in more than 50% of the PSCs. For the more
specific requirements (including sector specific requirements), greater in number and
complexity, the PSCs still often only offer general information about the procedure or no
information at all and few or no e-procedures.
The result is that foreign companies need to spend a lot of time and money in order to gather
relevant information, understand what they need to do and carry out the necessary
administrative procedures. More than half of SMEs say that administrative procedures related
to exporting are too difficult to comply with and therefore deter many firms from marketing
their products and services abroad
264
. This is confirmed by the Stakeholders' Consultation on
the single digital gateway, where a significant majority of respondents claim that they find it
very difficult both to find information online (78% of businesses and 70% of citizens), and
most of those who tried to carry out procedures cross-border found it difficult or had to give
up.
Based on the PSC study, the Commission launched 10 EU pilots
265
in July 2015 because of
two main issues: (1) the relevant PSC not offering the possibility to complete all
administrative procedures electronically and at distance; (2) lack of accessibility of electronic
procedures for foreign users. These EU Pilots are still ongoing.
A recent Court of Auditors report on the implementation of the Services Directive
266
concludes that PSCs are difficult to find, and that there is low business awareness.
Conclusion: The Points of Single Contact which were established under the Services
Directive have been partially effective in allowing businesses to complete all relevant
procedures fully online. Often, necessary information is missing, quality is deficient and
procedures cannot be carried out fully online. PSC performance is weakest when it comes to
the cross-border user: offering him accessible information and e-procedures that he can
conduct fully online from abroad is often deficient.
Product Contact Points
The Product Contact Points which the Regulation established have been partially successful in
meeting their objective of providing businesses with information on the applicable rules and
the application of the mutual recognition principle in the Member State where a business
wants to market its product
267
.
264
265
266
267
information – let along a service – available online. In contrast, entrepreneurs starting a business in their
own country face such issues in only 2% of the cases.
Flash Eurobarometer 421: Internationalistion of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Flash Eurobarometer
413.
EU Pilots are pre-infringement tools that allow an exchange of letters with the concerned Member State.
Court of Auditors Special Report No 5/2016 "Has the Commission ensured effective implementation of the
Services Directive?"
The PCPs are also being evaluated in the framework of the Commission evaluation of the functioning of
mutual recognition.
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A general problem is awareness: companies' lack of awareness of the mutual recognition
principle in general, and of the existence of the product contact points in particular. A
company survey conducted during the evaluation of the mutual recognition principle
268
showed that 54% of the companies interviewed did not know about the principle, or have
heard of it but are not familiar with the details. Among them, more than 80% are SMEs. A
European Business Test Panel
269
, conducted between May and September 2004, showed that
only 46% of respondents were familiar with the principle. A recent public consultation
270
with
91 business respondents had a more positive result: 70% of businesses declared being aware
of the principle
271
. However, 95% of businesses replied in the same consultation that
awareness-raising about the principle was still necessary. This points to an information
weakness: information about the mutual recognition principle has not reached the business
community to a sufficient degree. Although the principle is explained in detail on
Commission websites, including on Your Europe, this seems to not have reached the target
audience.
This general lack of awareness of the mutual recognition principle, which is not automatic,
can have an impact on the use of the Product Contact Points, as awareness of the existence of
different national technical rules that may apply to a product is a pre-condition for a business
to contact a Product Contact Point. Nevertheless, according to the 2016 public consultation on
mutual recognition, 94% of businesses are checking the national rules before entering a new
market. However, most of businesses never contacted a PCP in order to obtain information on
applicable product rules, mainly because they were not aware of their existence.
In terms of quality of the PCP service, the majority of those that did contact a PCP preferred
not to assess their experience (72%
272
) or not to mention why precisely they considered it as
not satisfactory (79%).
A few Member States
273
conducted national surveys on the usefulness of the PCPs, and the
results show that economic operators are globally satisfied with the services. But generally,
economic operators complain about the long time it takes for receiving an answer, the quality
of the answer or even the absence of it. This issue is sometimes highlighted by the Member
States in their annual reports. Often, PCPs receive questions which are not within their remit.
This is not surprising since their remit is limited to the non-harmonised sector, but products
are usually affected by both the harmonised and the non-harmonised sector. This constitutes a
serious problem for businesses, as in most cases the PCPs cannot provide them with an
exhaustive reply of which rules apply to their products.
Moreover, the variety of products falling under the scope of mutual recognition as well as the
increasing number of national rules
274
makes it difficult to easily identify the responsible
persons having the necessary expertise. Very often, the PCPs have to send enquiries to the
local level. This is one more reason why PCPs find the strict deadlines for replying to
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
Evaluation of the Application of the mutual recognition principle in the field of goods, Technopolis, 2015.
http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/impact/ia_carried_out/docs/ia_2007/sec_2007_0112_en.pdf.
Public consultation on mutual recognition, running from 1 June to 30 September 2016.
There might be a selection bias: companies being aware of the principle and the regulation are more likely
to answer to the open public consultation and are therefore likely to be overrepresented.
Result of the 2016 public consultation on mutual recognition.
Annual reports from SE 2015, DE and FR 2013.
The complexity of the legal framework is a main reason for the lack of effectiveness of the PCPs. However,
this is out of the scope of this exercise.
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economic operators difficult to meet. According to a study
275
, the most frequent model for
replying to requests to PCPs appears to be that the PCP sends the request to the responsible
authority, which then replies directly to the company without involving the PCP. The PCP
would then not be informed about the outcome of the query, rendering any monitoring of the
quality of the reply impossible. Language issues
276
, especially when technical language is
used, add further problems and delays. Both national and foreign companies use the product
contact point system.
Although this is voluntary, most Member States have set up dedicated PCP webpages.
According to a recent study
277
, Germany has two PCPs managed by different authorities;
Romania runs 4 PCPs. 6 Member States do not list an email address on their webpages. In the
case of Italy the email address is an online form which cannot be filled in online directly, but
must be printed and later scanned. Only 15 countries provide the contact details of the
competent authorities on their website/webpages, although this is a legal requirement. The
remaining 13 Member States may not be in breach of the Regulation as it is not prescribed
that information should be provided online. However, this would appear to be the easiest and
most user-friendly means of fulfilling this requirement. The same applies to information on
remedies, which is also required by law and which only half of the Member States (14)
publish on their website.
In terms of content made available online, 22 Member States explain the Mutual Recognition
Regulation. In their annual reports to the Commission, some Member States indicate that
offering online information about mutual recognition and certain problematic sectors helped
in optimising the functioning of the PCPs. 18 Member States present relevant national laws,
to varying degrees of detail. 16 Member States provide information on technical product
rules, though often not in an exhaustive way. 12 Member States display links to the NANDO
database. 10 countries offer a FAQ section/guidelines online. Although this is "better than
nothing", there is ample scope for every single Member State of improving (or even creating)
PCP websites.
The majority of respondents to the public consultation considered that the PCP network is still
useful and necessary, but needs to be further strengthened in order to be efficient as regards its
objectives. Lack of awareness of the PCPs' existence may lie at the root of the quality
problem, as this is responsible for the low demand. If the PCPs received more requests from
economic operators, Member States would be more likely to supply them with more and good
resources, or ensure a better functioning coordination mechanism within the country.
275
276
277
Evaluation of the Application of the Principle of Mutual Recognition in the Field of Goods, p. 62.
However, according to the recent Ecorys survey in which only 6 PCP and 11 PCPC participated, all PCPs
and PCPCs declared being able to answer queries in English. But the participation rate is too low to be
representative.
Screening Report on Member States' Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for Construction,
Ecorys, 2017.
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Conclusion: The Mutual Recognition Regulation, under which the PCPs were set up, only
encourages making information available through a website. While most Member States have
set up PCP websites voluntarily, these websites are of varying quality (often not very user-
friendly) and rarely list national technical rules per product. Businesses are mostly not aware
of the existence of the PCPs, and therefore do not look for and solicit them. When they do,
they often complain about response time and quality of the replies. It appears that the current
PCP network – whilst considered necessary – is not functioning effectively for businesses.
Construction Products Regulation and Product Contact Points for Construction
According to the "Analysis of Implementation of the Construction Products Regulation" of
July 2015, the awareness amongst companies about the existence of the PCPC is low, in
particular as far as PCPCs in other EU countries are concerned. The number of requests put to
PCPC is very low – between 15 for the Cypriot PCPC and 114 for the Croatian PCPCs
278
.
Nothing is known about the quality of the replies provided. According to a recent study
279
, 20
Member States have set up dedicated webpages for their PCPC, and 5 have full websites. 15
countries have translated their website/webpage content into English. In most cases web
content is only partially available in English.
The great majority (25 out of 28) of countries have created an ad hoc email address to contact
PCPCs. For the Spanish and Greek PCPC, contact details can be found only on the EC list. In
some other cases, contact details are not easy to find: the email address is provided only in the
English version of the website/webpage, or can be found only in the FAQ section. In some
countries, according to the study, there are reasons to believe that the email address attached
to the PCP is not functioning properly.
In terms of actual online content of the PCPCs, all PCPCs except for Slovakia, Hungary and
Poland provide information or link to information on CE marking. 16 PCPCs list the products
falling under CE marking. Some countries like France and Hungary have developed a
comprehensive database presenting the list of products and their related requirements.
Otherwise, a link is provided to websites of other competent authorities. 24 countries mention
the Declaration of Performance – some only mentioning it, others explaining it. 23 countries
display or give access to a list of products affected by European or national legislation. 23
PCPCs mention harmonised European norms and provide links. 11 PCPCs or CPR websites
display a link to the European Organisation for Technical Assessment. 19 online PCPCs
include a Q&A/Guidelines section, to different degrees of detail (e.g. 3 Q&A's in the case of
Bulgaria, and 73 in France). 4 countries display information on available remedies.
Information is not always clearly displayed and well-structured. In some cases, introductory
text is missing, including a clear explanation on the function of the national PCPC.
278
279
Outcome of a PCPC survey to which only 16 PCPC replied.
Screening Report on Member States' Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for Construction,
Ecorys, 2017.
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Conclusion: Although a detailed analysis of effectiveness, including a PCPC user survey, has
not been done until now, there are indications that the PCPCs are under-performing for
businesses. There are of course country variations, but generally speaking the indicative
number of requests submitted to the PCPCs appears to be very low and not in line with actual
business demand. Business awareness of the PCPCs is low, in particular as far as PCPCs in
other EU countries are concerned. While most Member States have set up PCPC websites
voluntarily, these websites are of varying quality (often not very user-friendly) and rarely list
national technical rules per product.
SOLVIT
The performance of SOLVIT and national SOLVIT centres has been reported yearly as of
2012
280
in the Single Market Scoreboard.
281
In 2015, the SOLVIT caseload was 2 228 cases
which was stable in comparison to the high increase in 2014 (2 368 cases). In 2015 SOLVIT
also received an additional 2 500 complaints that were not within its remit (the figure for 2014
was 2 400). For those cases, SOLVIT helped complainants by explaining their EU rights in
more detail or by finding another means of redress.
51% of cases were submitted online, 12% were transferred by Your Europe Advice and 1%
were transferred by Europe Direct Contact Centre. The rest were submitted via other means
(e-mail, phone, post, in person).
The overall performance of Member States is measured through their performance in four
indicators: (1) initial contact with the applicant – the target deadline is 7 days maximum; (2)
time taken to prepare cases for transfer to the SOLVIT centre in the Member State where the
problem occurred – the target deadline is 30 days maximum; time taken to handle a case – the
target deadline is 10 weeks maximum; resolution rate of cases.
In 2015, out of 31 SOLVIT centres, 16 performed above the average whilst 13 within the
average. For two centres no assessment could be done as they had no cases.
The result of the 2015 assessment on staffing is that caseloads are rising – but staff numbers
are static or even decreasing. In many cases, staff may be unable to cope with any further
caseload increases. Many centres also seem to experience difficulties with communicating
promptly (replying to e-mails, telephone calls etc.). High turnover in some centres makes
business continuity and efficient case handling even more difficult. In addition, many
SOLVIT centres often have to give priority to other tasks for their national administrations,
leaving insufficient time for SOLVIT duties.
The 2013 Recommendation set out specific qualitative objectives to achieve the general
purpose of SOLVIT that relate to three main areas: (i) the handling, follow-up and reporting
of 'structural problems' linked to breach of EU law by the Member States, (ii) the quality of
the service and (iii) the use of SOLVIT.
280
281
During the previous years, an individual report on SOLVIT was published. For an overview of the existing
reports see http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/documents/index_en.htm.
See
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/solvit/index_en.htm.
The data for 2016 will be published in July 2017.
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The resolution time and the resolution rate of so-called 'structural cases' is low. 'Structural
cases' are usually highly complex as they are caused by breaches of EU law by Member States
that are difficult to resolve (e.g. only by amendments to national laws, which usually takes
longer than the SOLVIT 10 week deadline). The number of structural cases handled increased
in 2015 to 97 cases (64 in 2014) and the cases closed within 10 weeks were 39%. The main
legal areas concerned were free movement of people and residence rights (50), recognition of
professional qualifications (14), free movement of workers (10) and social security (10).
In September 2015, all the Member States endorsed a policy paper (the so-called 'Lisbon
paper') on the future of SOLVIT
282
. The paper was presented to the Competitiveness Council
in November 2015
283
. The Member States pointed out that SOLVIT is not living up to its full
potential for businesses and citizens. They stressed that unresolved and repetitive cases are
often rooted in difficulties with national implementation and application of EU law. A clear
follow-up procedure for these unresolved cases is lacking. Neither SOLVIT centres nor
complainants are informed about whether there will be a follow-up. Repetitive cases without
structural solutions are not effectively dealt with by the Commission or referred to the
Council and co-legislators. The paper stresses that citizens and businesses should not have to
lodge their complaint again if their case is unresolved in SOLVIT as is the current situation.
Moreover, it notes that the follow-up of the unresolved SOLVIT cases is not transparent and
there is a lack of clear reporting and mechanism to the Member States and SOLVIT centres.
The 2013 SOLVIT Recommendation clarifies the level of service individuals and businesses
can expect from SOLVIT and sets out minimum standards SOLVIT centres should comply
with, in terms of organisation, legal expertise, and relations with other networks.
284
Nevertheless, although the quality of the service is satisfactory, it varies across the network
due to different factors.
285
The quality check performed by the Commission SOLVIT team on
a regular basis shows that there is scope for improvement in the handling of cases and respect
of deadlines. Further work is required from governments in making sure that SOLVIT centres
are adequately staffed, in enabling them to prioritise SOLVIT work, in ensuring a degree of
staffing continuity and ensuring that national SOLVIT centres have sufficient authority within
their national administration. In addition, further prioritization of the Member States'
governments is needed as regards the follow-up of relevant structural issues detected through
SOLVIT. In addition, as regards the SOLVIT centres, the focus on the quality of case
handling should be strengthened, as well as efforts in meeting the recommended target times,
keeping applicants informed on progress and ensuring access to expertise on issues of interest
to business.
In 2015 SOLVIT also received an additional 2 500 complaints that were not within its remit
(the figure for 2014 was 2 400). It is important to highlight that although these cases do not
fall within SOLVIT's mandate, SOLVIT helped complainants by explaining their EU rights in
more detail or by finding another means of redress. The proportion of in and out of scope
282
283
284
285
The paper was the outcome of a conference on SOLVIT held in Lisbon and organized by 18 SOLVIT
centres on 18 September 2015. It contains specific actions and calls for the reinforcement of SOLVIT
through (i) its promotion as the first step in the enforcement of EU law, (ii) the systematic follow-up by the
Commission services of unresolved and repetitive cases and (iii) the establishment of regular reporting for
SOLVIT to the Council.
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/compet/2015/11/30-01/
Commission Recommendation on principles governing SOLVIT, 17.9.2013, Brussels, C (2013) 5869 final.
See yearly evaluation of the performance of SOLVIT on:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/solvit/index_en.htm.
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cases (2 228 vs 2 500) cannot be considered satisfactory and deviates the reduced resources of
the national SOLVIT centres from their main tasks. Another point as regards the use of
SOLVIT is that although the number of the cases has increased significantly in the period
2012-2015, this is mainly due to the increase of submission of cases in two specific legal
areas, namely social security and residence rights.
Moreover, over the years, businesses have submitted only a fraction of the number of cases
compared with those submitted by individuals. In 2015, 107 out of 2 228 cases were
submitted by business. A combination of factors appears to account for this, including the
relatively low level of awareness of SOLVIT, complexity of business cases and businesses'
preference for using formal legal channels that offer more leverage.
Conclusion: The general objective of SOLVIT has not been fully met: in 2015 12% of the
cases could not be resolved, in 23% of the cases the applicants got their first reply after the
deadline of 7 days, the preparation of cases as home centre took longer than the deadline of 30
days in 14% of the complaints and 34% of the accepted cases took longer than the aim of 10
weeks. Businesses are currently not using SOLVIT much. The main underlying reasons
impeding SOLVIT's effectiveness are the lack of authority, adequacy of the staff and limited
awareness of SOLVIT and the services it offers, especially for businesses and that there is not
yet a fully operational systematic set-up for the handling, follow-up and reporting of
'structural problems' detected in SOLVIT.
Your Europe
Your Europe already functions as a "gateway". It is an online access point to EU-level and
national information and certain services, and also signposts to a wide range of assistance
services.
Data in the Single Market Scoreboard shows that use of the site has been continuously
growing and reached over 1,4 million monthly visits in 2016 (up from 800,000 in 2014 and
one million in 2015). No official evaluation of the Your Europe Portal has ever been carried
out so far. Therefore, the only indications can be the online user surveys, which Your Europe
conducts regularly. These show high levels of satisfaction, with more than 90% 'satisfied' or
'very satisfied'. 70% say that they found the information they were looking for, fully or at least
partially.
Your Europe is written in jargon-free language from a user-perspective. A page on Your
Europe contains typically a text describing the rights, obligations and/or opportunities related
to EU legislation, real life sample stories to illustrate how it works in practice, links to the
related EU legislation (as the core text is drafted for non-specialists, Directives and
Regulations are not spelled out there), links to the contacts points of national authorities and
national websites for content, frequently asked questions and links to relevant assistance
services available to answer additional questions. Content is constantly updated and revised.
Your Europe is considered a "best practice" example of a Commission webpage and is often
quoted as best practice in the context of the Commission's "digital transformation" project
towards a new and improved (more user-centric) Europa site.
Your Europe uses tracking data (e.g. the most frequently sought information; number of
unique visitors/visits, etc.) as well as user feedback from a targeted yearly survey to
constantly improve the service.
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However, there is scope for improvement. According to the 2013 Your Europe Action Plan,
people not finding the information they need frequently said that this was due to navigation
problems or to missing national-level information. The EU citizenship public consultation
(2015) showed that the main source of information that citizens consulted prior to moving to
another EU country were websites of public authorities of that country. 73% of respondents
searching for information available online had used websites of authorities in the EU country
to which they were planning to move, as compared to 35% who had consulted web portals of
EU institutions. This suggests thinking about a better integration of EU and national websites.
The Your Europe citizen section is much more used than the business section (more than 2/3
of total visitors). This is linked to the fact that the target audience is different in size, but
might also suggest that there is scope for improvement as far as the business section is
concerned. Your Europe links to national content where it exists and when this is notified to it
via the Editorial Board or other expert groups.
For several sections on Your Europe, national content has been requested to Editorial Board
members, but has not been entirely delivered. This concerns information for parts of the
following sections: residence formalities: 33% is missing, vehicles: 24%, VAT refunds: 19%,
national contact points: 17%, travel: 15%, taxation: 15%, terms of employment: 13%, start &
grow: 11%. The Business Section mainly links to national portals and assistance services and
contains much less national-level information than the Citizens section. In an attempt to avoid
overlaps it is relying on Member States to provide information through their own portals.
Given the diverging quality of national portals, incomplete and missing national content is
therefore Your Europe's biggest concern.
According to European Commission desk research conducted in January 2017 assessing
availability of national-level information and assistance services for eight selected business
areas
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, in national language and in English, the results vary significantly according to
Member State and area, and availability of information is, on average, 25% lower in English
than in the national language (for the language difference, please see the graph on the next
page; for the detailed Member State figures and gap analysis, please see annex 4).
The biggest gaps can be found in the area of selling goods, complying with environmental
rules and complying with health and safety conditions.
This lack of online availability of national information is then directly reflected via the Your
Europe portal, where these parts become gaps (for certain Member States in any case). An
ongoing study concludes that for specific national requirements and procedures, the portal
refers users to the Point of Single Contact in the country of interest, where uneven levels of
detail are provided
287
.
286
287
For each Member State, three questions were researched online for each of the following sections: 1)
starting, running and closing a business, 2) hiring staff, 3) paying taxes, 4) selling goods, 5) providing
services, 6) getting funds, 7) complying with environmental rules (certification and labels), 8) complying
with health and safety conditions.
Study on information and assistance needs of businesses operating cross-border within the EU, including
gap and cost analysis, Draft Final Report, January 2017.
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Figure 3.1
The Commission tracks the contribution of Member States to Your Europe on the Single
Market Scoreboard through three indicators: (1) answers received by the Editorial Board from
their national administration, to request for information for Your Europe, (2) attendance at 2
Editorial Board meetings per year, and (3) traffic from government pages to Your Europe and
promotional activity requested by members of the Editorial Board. The most recent (2015)
available result is that the performance of 3 Member States was assessed as below average, 4
were average and the rest above average. Thus, overall, the cooperation with Member States
is working effectively.
According to the Your Europe Action Plan, even where national information exists, it is often
not tailored to the needs of those operating in a cross-border context. In addition, the quality
of national content varies – sometimes national websites only exist in national language
288
, or
no website is offered but only a summary of relevant national characteristics of the matter in
question. The latter can seldom provide sufficient information in complex matters (e.g. in the
business context).
User statistics indicate that visitors find Your Europe mainly through search engines and the
europe.eu website.
288
An internal analysis of the language coverage of national citizen portals shows that 10 Member States run
portals which, in addition to the national language(s), also exist fully in English. 11 Member States offer
portals that are partly available in English, and 5 Member States' portals are only available in the national
language. 4 countries have no citizens' portals. Business portals (e.g. PSCs) provide more English coverage,
but often only partially and sometimes only using machine translation.
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According to Search Engine Optimisation assessment, information on Your Europe is
generally well ranked in search engines. Further improvement could be reached by
eliminating duplication. For example, the topic of social security is covered by Your Europe,
websites of DGs employment and SANCO, EURES, Missoc, and a multitude of national
sites
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. Your Europe, the EU Commission in Ireland, the European Parliament's website, the
EEC-Net Belgium and Denmark all present information on air passenger rights on their
websites. In the area of consumer rights, everything covered by Your Europe is also covered
separately by all individual ECC-Net national centres. Both Your Europe and EURES overlap
with regard to working in another EU country. Information on roaming is presented on Your
Europe, DG CNECT and European Parliament websites. The digital transformation process
within the Commission is currently addressing these concerns for all europa pages while no
procedures are in place beyond this mandate.
Conclusion: Your Europe users are usually satisfied with the portal and able to find what they
need. Overall, Member States are cooperating well and are delivering national content. The
content of the EU-level (main) portal is being drawn up in a user-friendly and user-centric
way. Main areas for improvement are filling the national-level information gaps, addressing
overlaps and enhancing awareness about Your Europe.
Your Europe Advice
In 2016, the YEA service replied to some 24 000 enquiries, a number that has more than
doubled since 2008.
Service effectiveness is measured by testing the quality of the replies through randomly
selected samples of 10% of cases each month. Each sample case is assessed according to the
substantial and formal quality criteria agreed with the Commission. According to the 2016
Single Market Scoreboard, replies are found to provide comprehensive and accurate advice on
the issues in question.
According to the 2014 Evaluation of the Your Europe Advice Service, YEA meets the
objective of providing a service that is fast, of high quality and offering advice that empowers
its users. The reach of the service is however limited considering the number of EU citizens
who may require personalised legal advice and assistance on their EU rights. Given budgetary
limits to the total number of queries that can be handled in a year, the service is not actively
promoted.
The YEA service meets the needs of a large majority of its current users. Only one sixth of all
YEA users feel that the service did not fully meet their needs, mostly due to incomplete
answers, unhelpful answers and replies that do not contain enough practical guidance.
The evaluation did not identify any unmet needs of the potential users of the YEA service that
should be addressed by the service. However, the data gathered suggest that the citizens who
289
Another examples is air passenger rights, which is covered on Your Europe and also on the following
websites:
EP:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_5.6.2.html;
ECC-Net Belgium:
http://www.eccbelgium.be/themes/travel/travelling-by-plane;
ECC-Net Denmark:
http://www.consumereurope.dk/Travel/When-you-travel/Airline-travel.
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submitted enquiries that were ineligible for the service could be better informed about the
reasons why their case was rejected.
Users are overall satisfied with the quality of the replies. In total 80% are satisfied or very
satisfied with the service received. Satisfaction was somewhat lower for enquiries related to
tax and social security issues, mostly for lack of practical guidance, insufficient explanations
of the relevant legislation and incomplete answers provided. Almost all YEA users receive
replies in their preferred language and are satisfied with the time it took to obtain them.
The satisfaction with the signposting to national or EU level services was generally lower
than with the other aspects of the service. Due to the characteristics of YEA a considerable
share of responses lacks such signposting when it would have been relevant (45% of the
responses do not include signposting to EU sources and 25% to national level sources).
Where a citizen is not satisfied with the service, relevant the Commission checks the reason
for the dissatisfaction: delay, inaccuracy, unclear wording, false expectations. The following
measures are taken: frequent delays are noted and the experts in question are reminded; for
inaccurate or unclear replies revised replies are requested.
The Commission requires the contractor to signpost ineligible case to the Europe Direct Call
Centres or other relevant assistance services within 24 hours.
The evaluation concludes that the quality control schemes applied by the Commission and the
contractor are appropriate.
The evaluation points out that the YEA service is not easy to find. Most users either find the
service through the Europa website or an internet search. The use of the service has evolved
together with the increasing use of the Your Europe portal. This is intentional: following the
rationale of the second line service, the YEA has not been the subject of extensive promotion.
Information available online on the service is concentrate on the YEA website, which is part
of the Europa website. Nevertheless, information on the service is also presented on various
national, and to a smaller extent, regional and local stakeholders' websites as well as a host of
private websites.
As a service that receives citizens' and businesses' enquiries on the application and
misapplication of EU law, YEA is ideally placed to provide feedback to the various services
of the Commission on the problem areas. Since 2012, YEA Quarterly Feedback Reports
provide information on recurrent and new issues emerging in comparison to the previous
quarter in each country as well as an overview of the main problem issues and 'problem
countries'.
Conclusion: YEA meets the objective of providing a service that is fast, of high quality and
offering advice that empowers its users. The quarterly feedback reports with recurrent and
new issues are prepared for Commission policy-makers and contain useful information on
how the Single Market is (not) working 'on the ground'. On purpose YEA is not easy to find
online since the approach is to guide users to the Your Europe webpages to find answers to
their questions. Too much publicity would lead to more queries than the current annual budget
can handle. YEA should only step in where information is not available or not specific
enough for the individual citizen's case. There is scope for improving signposting from YEA
to other services from YEA .
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Enterprise Europe Network
The most recent EEN Evaluation (focusing on the previous EEN network under the CIP
programme)
290
assessed the effectiveness of the various services of the network. The outcome
was that the effect of information services is slightly lower than other services. This can be
explained by the fact that these services are used by most SMEs at an early stage of the
involvement in the Network, when impact of the Network may be less pronounced. More than
85 % of SMEs are satisfied with the advisory services of the EEN. As a consequence of this,
the focus of the Enterprise Europe Network under the new COSME programme has shifted
towards the provision of higher impact advisory and partnership services.
The "no wrong door principle", which is basically sign-posting, was evaluated as very
efficient.
Very detailed quality criteria apply to the reporting of the advisory services, including
services provided and resulting achievements. All achievement reports need to be stored in a
central EASME database. Quality checks are performed regularly to verify the quality and
eligibility of registered achievement reports.
The EEN has been effective in collecting very detailed and practical feedback from businesses
about problems encountered in the Single Market and their negative impacts on the businesses
in terms of additional costs or losses and loss of time caused by the problem. The database in
which these cases are registered since 2008 includes more than 8000 such cases and the
network has been effective in collecting these cases.
A key recommendation of the evaluation is that the visibility of the Network should be
improved.
Conclusion: The EEN has been providing effective information and advisory services that
have satisfied the large majority of SME clients. EEN partners' sign-posting activities are
judged as very efficient. Effective achievement reporting standards and documentation
through a central EU database are in place. The EEN has been effective in collecting
feedback from businesses about problems encountered. One historic weakness has been low
visibility, but according to most recent assessment reports this seems to be improving.
EURES
The EURES network has helped many jobseekers, workers and employers in realising
mobility opportunities. Those who reach out to the EURES network and can use the services
it offers generally appreciate it
291
. Furthermore, EURES has contributed to building awareness
on mobility, and by so doing to an improved balance between supply and demand of labour in
the EU. EURES also contributes with indirect job searching assistance, in providing
information on living and working conditions as well as other information about labour
markets in other European countries.
As part of its activities, EURES provides information on issues such as social security,
taxation, healthcare, pensions etc., which are important to workers and their family members
290
291
Final Evaluation of the impact of the Enterprise Europe Network – 2008-2014, Technopolis, 2015.
Quote from the impact assessment for the EURES Regulation, SWD(2014) 9 final of 17/1/2014.
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moving abroad. According to the EURES 2006-08 ex-post evaluation and monthly reports of
EURES managers, EURES advisers spend 10% of their time on information and guidance on
social security and taxation and 8% on information and guidance on living and working
conditions. The impact assessment accompanying the 2014 proposal for the Regulation states
that, because of these information activities, EURES advisers dedicate only a small part of
their time to concrete, individualised assistance to bring about recruitment and placement. The
way how information and advice on social security is provided, as part of EURES services, is
listed as one of three types of limitations in the services and measures of the EURES network.
Under the new EURES Regulation, EURES member organisations should signpost requests
for specific information on the rights relating to social security, active labour market
measures, taxation, issues relating to work contracts, pension entitlement and health insurance
to the national competent authorities and, if applicable, other appropriate bodies at national
level support.
An IT-based “matching” interface is to be developed under the new Regulation, with May
2018 as deadline.
Conclusion: Apart from direct job placement, which is its core aim, EURES has been
effective in allowing workers to be better informed about living and working conditions in
other European countries. However, this information could be more detailed and more
practical for jobseekers. EURES could function more effectively if EURES advisers could
dedicate more time to concrete, individualised assistance to bring about recruitment and
placement instead of to more general information and advice on working and living
conditions in other countries.
European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net)
According to the 2011 evaluation of the EEC-Net, further work of the ECC-Net centres is
needed to conduct regular market research (including research via media monitoring) to
identify goods and services where price differentials remain high and make this information
available to policy makers and consumers.
Most users (74%) are satisfied with the quality of the service they receive from the Network.
For example, following advice received from the ECCs, a majority of the ECC-Net users
(67%) have either resolved the issue directly with the trader, used the European Small Claims
procedure or pursued further action by contacting another organisation (e.g. bodies
responsible for policy, enforcement or ADR). The minority (14%) who were not satisfied
typically stressed the prolonged time taken in case handing and/or that their particular
complaint was not resolved to their satisfaction. The inability of the ECCs to secure redress is
a source of disappointment for many unsatisfied users.
Moreover, 87% of the respondents to the user survey (conducted as part of the ECC-Net
evaluation), consider that the replies and assistance provided by the ECCs are relevant,
tailored and useful. Case study analysis and mystery shopping results however, suggest that
some ECCs could provide more tailored responses to customer enquiries.
The evidence points to growing demand for the services offered by the Network. The number
of consumer enquiries (information requests, complaints and disputes) handled by the
Network rose by 25% over the period 2005 to 2009.
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However, the ECCs’ actions are having a limited impact on consumer confidence in cross
border shopping. Only 29% of the respondents to the user survey reported an increase in
confidence as a result of contacting the ECCs; while 19% reported a fall in confidence. This is
because a significant proportion of the cases handled by the ECCs are closed without any
solution each year (27% in 2008 and 39% in 2009) or transferred to other organisations (11%
in 2008 and 13% in 2009). The ECC-Net’s ability to facilitate access to redress is constrained
by a number of external and internal factors, such as the lack of willingness on the part of
some traders to engage with the ECCs in resolution of consumer complaints, the lack of
effective case handling protocols, limited resources spread too thinly across a range of
activities, and the lack of effective performance management tools.
Overall, 79% of EU citizens do not know where to get information and advice about cross-
border shopping in the EU. The overall visibility of the ECCs among the general population is
low. Only 15% of European citizens (and 20% of the cross-border shoppers) have heard of the
ECCs. However, this is not necessarily an issue where the ECCs have good linkages with
relevant stakeholders (such as national consumer, enforcement and ADR bodies) that allow
effective signposting of consumers and cross-referral of cases. Moreover, a survey conducted
by the Commission (which was addressed to EU networks) suggests that the ECCs are more
visible than other EU networks. According to available evidence, 11% of EU25 citizens had
heard of the ECCs in 2006; whereas the visibility of other EU networks ranged from 2% - 6%.
Once consumers are aware of them, the ECCs are generally easy to access. Over 75% of the
users stated the ECC was either ‘very easy’ or ‘somewhat easy’ to find. Less than one-tenth of
users stated the ECC had been ‘very difficult’ or ‘difficult’ to find (7%).
The ECC websites are an important means of introducing the ECC to potential users. The
majority of the users are satisfied with the quality (76%), content (76%) and layout (71%) of
the ECC websites. However, relevant internet searches do not identify the sites as well as they
might and there is scope to improve the quality of the websites of some ECCs. The ECC-Net
evaluation suggests for the ECC websites to have common structures (for example, the
availability of a web form for contact, up to date information, FAQs etc.).
ECC-Net centres also undertake promotional activities which reach hundreds of thousands of
consumers across Europe each year. However, the extent of cooperation for promotional
purposes with other stakeholders involved in the field of consumer protection varies across
the EU depending upon national context. The main promotional activities undertaken by the
ECCs are normally not coordinated with other EU networks as the focus of such activities
tends to be on ‘consumer’ issues rather than ‘EU’ issues; although some examples of common
promotional activities can be found in countries like Latvia, Slovenia and Germany. As
regards cooperation with national stakeholders (e.g. host organisation, enforcement bodies
etc.), the need for cooperation is strongest when promotional activities cover topics of
common interest. This is already happening, albeit to a limited extent (e.g. Luxembourg).
Systematic coordination of promotional activity with other stakeholders by the ECCs could be
a source of economies of scale and would ensure delivery of consistent messages.
The evaluation of the ECC-Net calls for informing consumers from the first point of contact
about the role and competences of the Network, for placing greater emphasis on
consumer/business awareness campaigns of a preventative nature, and for consumer education
initiatives to equip consumers with the skills and knowledge to participate in the internal
market with confidence. Such campaigns could usefully be linked to developments in EU
consumer policy. Moreover, the evaluation suggests that the ECCs should systematically
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coordinate their promotional activities with relevant European and national stakeholders on
topics of common interest in order to benefit from economies of scale and to ensure delivery
of consistent messages to consumers/businesses.
Only partial information is available from feedback on complaint outcomes. In many cases,
ECCs simply inform consumers about their rights, so they can contact the trader themselves.
These consumers rarely come back to the ECC with feedback, so the ECC assume this is
because they reached an agreement with the trader. In more complicated cases, where ECCs
help consumers further by contacting the traders themselves, more information on the
outcome is available.
In terms of quality, the evaluation points out inconsistencies in working practices e.g.
response times and differences in the quality of the case handlers across the centres. It calls
for putting in place effective quality control and quality assurance measures for ECCs joint
projects and for maintaining efforts to improve case handling procedures by introducing
common minimum standards of service across the Network. According to the 2016 edition of
the Single Market Scoreboard, the priorities for the further development of the ECC-Net's
work are to increase the visibility of the network and its outcomes for consumers, business
and enforcement authorities, and to further develop the quality standards to ensure a high
standard of service to consumers.
Conclusion: The ECC-Net has been effective in allowing the majority of its users (67%) to
resolve their issues, with cross-border shopping still an issue of great concern. The overall
visibility of the ECCs among the general population is low. Overall, 79% of EU citizens do
not know where to get information and advice about cross-border shopping in the EU.
Promotional campaigns could be better coordinated with relevant European and national
stakeholders on topics of common interest. Relevant internet searches do not identify the sites
as well as they might and there is scope to improve the quality of the websites of some ECCs.
However, once they are found online, the ECCs are easy to access via the ECC websites. Only
partial information is available from feedback on complaint outcomes. Quality standards (on
complaint handling only) exist, but are not public or formal. Common minimum service
standards across the Network do not exist.
********
To what extent have the instruments, taken together, been effective in allowing citizens
and businesses to obtain relevant information and assistance, complete electronically all
relevant procedures, benefit from high quality services that are easy to find?
Over the past 15 years, EU legislation has created legal requirements to set up information
and assistance services aimed at helping citizens and businesses. Also, a large number of such
services have been created in a non-legislative way. The individual effectiveness results of
these services are mixed, but the overall effectiveness is even more worrying. There is no
common recognisable brand under which they could operate. Many different brand names are
used but citizens and businesses are not aware of them and are not using them in a systematic
way
292
. Nor is there a "one brand search engine" under which they could be found online. The
closest to such a gateway is the Your Europe portal, which links to other services. However,
292
According to the European Parliament study "A European Single Point of Contact" (2015), 91.6% of
consumers and businesses are unaware of any online services at European level that they could turn to in
case of problems.
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the portal is not well-known either; national-level information is missing, and the sign-posting
is often not reciprocal. For instance, while Your Europe is sign-posting to the PSCs, not many
PSCs are sign-posting to Your Europe. Navigation of the various Single Market information
portals is not always straightforward, and many EU citizens and businesses do not know
where to get the information and assistance they need
293
.
It also appears that the voluntary approach has its clear limits. It has failed to ensure that all
Member States set up PCP and PCPC websites on which they offer relevant information in an
exhaustive way. It has also failed to constrain the mushrooming of contact points, which is
confusing for the users who often need to visit more than one 'single' contact point for the task
at hand. SOLVIT's suffers from lack of sufficient national resources. Those responsible for
the different services at national level, indicate that it is difficult to obtain adequate resources
for voluntary commitments, and that the absence of clear, legally binding rules makes it
difficult to cooperate effectively with the ministries and local authorities that need to provide
input. Most respondents to the online public consultation on the single digital gateway
consider that the provision of information and procedures should be mandatory, regardless of
whether it covers all or basic information.
No common quality criteria exist, which is detrimental to the usability and user-friendliness of
the services as a whole. Badly functioning contact points undermine credibility for the
network as a whole. The PSC Charter established quite far-reaching quality criteria for the
PSCs, but as these are not mandatory, adherence is patchy. This is confirmed by a recent
study
294
: the quality of the PSCs varies significantly. Other services, e.g. the ECCs, have the
same experience with voluntary quality standards.
The Refit Platform Stakeholder Group asked the Commission to propose a Regulation to
create a true online business portal for both goods and services to complement the text of the
2006 Services Directive and clearly indicate which minimum criteria for performance must
apply to the PSCs. Information should be offered in English and/or the language(s) of the
neighbouring countries. The Refit Platform Government Group recommended to the
Commission to consider the integration of online information from PCPs and PCPCs, and
SOLVIT with that of the PSC. This would indeed go a long way towards improving the
situation. However, as the current evaluation shows, the PSCs, PCPs, PCPCs and SOLVIT are
only part of the picture, and other EU and national-level Single Market tools need to be
included as well. In March 2015 the Competitiveness Council called for a political
commitment 'to strengthen and streamline Single Market tools (…) in order to better meet the
needs of businesses and citizens in their cross-border activities'.
To what extent have the instruments in place been effective in providing policy-makers
with evidence for policy-making?
The evidence from YEA, SOLVIT, ECC and the EEN cases has been used for policy-making
but only on an ad hoc basis leaving a lot of untapped potential. For instance, the ECC Net's
studies on passenger rights were used by the Commission as input to a revision of those
rights. But case data from other sources (e.g. Your Europe Advice) could also have been used.
The problem here is that these cases are not brought together and analysed collectively.
293
294
E.g. Evaluation of the ECC Net, 2011: 79% of EU citizens do not know where to get consumer information
and advice.
"The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter", Capgemini
and Eurochambres, June 2015.
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Overview of "effectiveness" conclusions
PSCs:
The Points of Single Contact which were established under the Services Directive have
been partially effective in allowing businesses to complete all relevant procedures fully
online. Often, necessary information is missing, quality is deficient and procedures cannot be
carried out fully online. PSC performance is weakest when it comes to the cross-border user:
offering him accessible information and e-procedures that he can conduct fully online from
abroad is often deficient.
PCPs:
The Mutual Recognition Regulation, under which the PCPs were set up, only
encourages making information available through a website. While most Member States have
set up PCP websites voluntarily, these websites are of varying quality (often not very user-
friendly) and rarely list national technical rules per product. Businesses are mostly unaware of
the existence of the PCPs, and therefore do not look for and solicit them. When they do, they
often complain about response times and the quality of the replies. It appears that the current
PCP network – whilst considered necessary – is not functioning effectively for businesses.
PCPCs:
Although a detailed analysis of effectiveness, including a PCPC user survey, has not
been done, there are indications that the PCPC are under-performing for businesses. There are
of course country variations, but generally speaking the indicative number of requests
submitted to the PCPCs appears to be very low and not in line with actual business demand.
Business awareness of the PCPCs is low, in particular as far as PCPCs in other EU countries
are concerned. While most Member States have set up PCPC websites voluntarily, these
websites are of varying quality (often not very user-friendly) and rarely list national technical
rules per product.
SOLVIT:
The general objective of SOLVIT has not been fully met: in 2015 12% of the cases
could not be resolved, in 23% of the cases the applicants got their first reply after the deadline
of 7 days, the preparation of cases as home centre took longer than the deadline of 30 days in
14% of the complaints and 34% of the accepted cases took longer than the aim of 10 weeks.
Businesses are currently not using SOLVIT much. The main underlying reasons impeding
SOLVIT's effectiveness are the lack of authority, adequacy of the staff and limited awareness
of SOLVIT and the services it offers, especially for businesses and that there is not yet a fully
operational systematic set-up for the handling, follow-up and reporting of 'structural problems'
detected in SOLVIT.
Your Europe
users are usually satisfied with the portal and able to find what they need.
Overall, Member States are cooperating well and are delivering national content. The content
of the EU-level (main) portal is being drawn up in a user-friendly and user-centric way. Main
areas for improvement are filling the national-level information gaps, adressing overlaps and
enhancing awareness about Your Europe.
YEA
meets the objective of providing a service that is fast, of high quality and offering
advice that empowers its users. The quarterly feedback reports with recurrent and new issues
are prepared for Commission policy-makers and contain useful information on how the Single
Market is (not) working 'on the ground'. Furthermore, the signposting to other services is not
working as it should.
The
EEN
has been providing effective information and advisory services that have satisfied
the large majority of SME clients. EEN partners' sign-posting activities are judged as very
efficient. Effective achievement reporting standards and documentation through a central EU
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database are in place. The EEN has been effective in collecting feedback from businesses
about problems encountered. One historic weakness was low visibility, but according to most
recent assessment reports this seems to be improving.
EURES:
Apart from direct job placement, which is its core aim, EURES has been effective in
allowing workers to be better informed about living and working conditions in other European
countries. However, this information could be more detailed and more practical for
jobseekers. EURES could function more effectively if EURES advisers could dedicate more
time to concrete, individualised assistance to bring about recruitment and placement instead of
to more general information and advice on working and living conditions in other countries.
The
ECC-Net
has been effective in allowing the majority of its users (67%) to resolve their
issues, with cross-border shopping still an issue of great concern. The overall visibility of the
ECCs among the general population is low. Overall, 79% of EU citizens do not know where
to get information and advice about cross-border shopping in the EU. Promotional campaigns
could be better coordinated with relevant European and national stakeholders on topics of
common interest. Relevant internet searches do not identify the sites as well as they might and
there is scope to improve the quality of the websites of some ECCs. However, once they are
found online, the ECCs are easy to access via the ECC websites. Only partial information is
available from feedback on complaint outcomes. Quality standards (on complaint handling
only) exist, but are not public or formal. Common minimum service standards across the
Network do not exist.
Taken together,
the services have not been very effective in being perceived "as a whole" by
citizens and businesses, as they are not operating under a common recognisable brand. This
decreases their visibility and findability online – which is the key pre-condition for effectively
delivering to the target group. Also, a common approach to quality is missing. Voluntary
commitments and approaches have reached their limits and have not been effective in
obtaining the necessary allocation of resources. The very interesting registers of cases and
queries from the different services have not been linked up and analysed collectively by
policy-makers.
3.4.2
The efficiency of the existing framework
To what extent have the instruments in place been successful in allowing citizens and
businesses to obtain relevant information, to complete procedures electronically, to benefit
from high-quality services that are easy to find at a reasonable cost to public administrations
and to society at large?
Points of Single Contact
The Services Directive generates costs to public authorities, as it obliged them to set up and
run online points of single contact. Often, the PSCs are embedded in countries' general e-
government portals and IT infrastructure. Cost figures for even a minority of Member States'
PSCs do not exist. Where they exist, they are of such variety, patchy and incomplete (e.g.
missing user figures for the benefit side) that no conclusions on efficiency can be drawn
295
.
295
e.g. German Land of Hessen: yearly technical running costs excluding human ressources and organisational
costs: € 900,000; Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: annual running costs of € 120,000. The German PSC
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Product Contact Points
The Mutual Recognition Regulation generates costs for Member States as far as the
establishment and operation of the PCPs is concerned. However, as stated in the Regulation,
Member States may entrust the role of PCP to existing services within the public
administration or to national SOLVIT centres, chambers of commerce, professional
organisations and private bodies, in order not to increase administrative costs for enterprises
and authorities. Member States have adopted different approaches, with some generating
more costs than others. Most of the time, the PCP has been integrated in an already existing
department dealing with internal market issues. Based on the annual reports, one person on
average runs the PCP. However, only 50% of Member States have reported the number of
staff involved. In a small number of Member States
296
, the PCP responsibilities are divided
between 6-7 sector ministries or inspectorates. A rather extreme version of a decentralised set-
up can be found in France and Italy, where the PCP is not a central unit in charge of the
mutual recognition concept, but simply the contact point towards the Commission.
During the mutual recognition public consultation, national authorities ranked the costs linked
to the implementation of the Regulation as average costs. A recent survey as part of a study
297
asked Member States to estimate the costs of running the PCP in terms of Full-Time
Equivalents (FTE). Very few Member States replied to this question. Member States indicated
between 0.1 FTE (Ireland) and 2 FTE (Croatia). Slovenia's joint PCP/PCPC uses 1 FTE.
These FTE need to be compared to the number of requests dealt with. According to the same
survey, in which only 6 PCP participated, the number of requests is very low and varies –
from 15 per year for the Cypriot PCP to 100 for the Croatian PCP. However, figures are being
calculated differently (some taking phone calls into account while others don't) and thus need
to be treated with care. But they give an indication of the generally speaking very low number
of requests. Furthermore, many businesses contact the competent authorities directly and do
not go via the PCPs
298
, or PCPs act as coordinating bodies that simply forward the requests to
the competent authorities, without playing any role as far as the substance of the request and
the reply to the operator is concerned. Most likely, given the large magnitude of cross-border
trading of products within the Single Market, there is a very large untapped potential for using
the PCPs (much) more.
Most Member States (25) have – voluntarily – set up online portals that provide information
on the role of the PCP and mutual recognition. 18 Member States provide this information
(sometimes partially) in English. A number of Member States (e.g. UK, France, Denmark,
Belgium) also provide national technical rules for products directly on their websites.
The availability of online information generates costs (website creation and keeping it up-to-
date). However, these costs are easily counterbalanced by the potential reduction of the
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297
298
set-up cannot be considered as cost-efficient as it consists of a multitude of PSCs. Most (with the exception
of Austria) Member States have just created one national PSC, which limits the costs.
Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, according to the Evaluation of the Application of the Principle of Mutual
Recognition in the Field of Goods.
Guidelines for improving consistency across PCPCs and PCP, Ecorys, 2017.
As stated in the "Evaluation of Internal Market Legislation for Industrial Products" (SWD(2014) 23 final,
many economic operators request and receive information directly from national authorities, without going
through the PCPs. This is often due to a lack of awareness of the existence of the PCPs.
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number of "basic" enquiries to the PCP. A survey
299
asked PCPs (and PCPCs) whether they
saw advantages linked to the online publication of information on national technical product
rules. 5 out of 6 surveyed PCPs and 10 out of 11 PCPCs did, mostly for transparency reasons,
but in the case of two PCPs and all PCPCs except one, also for having fewer questions
addressed to them.
As far as the administrative burden on businesses due to quality issues of the PCPs is
concerned, companies may need to resort to consultants, lawyers or other private sector third
parties to make up for the deficits, or may even lose market opportunities. This is actually the
channel companies' use most often in order to receive information and advice about foreign
market rules and requirements.
Conclusion: There is not enough information available on the efficiency of the PCPs. What
can be said is that PCPs are only partially effective and are under-used by economic
operators, who generally resort to much more expensive solutions to meet their needs. The
(for many Member States) low quality of their PCP websites represents a missed opportunity
for Member States in terms of the possibility to reduce the number of requests and to be even
more cost-efficient.
Product Contact Points for Construction
According to a study feeding into the Construction Sector Fitness Check
300
, the PCPs created
under the Construction Products Regulation may save the business: i) internal work, i.e. the
time needed to familiarise with unknown or uncertain legal provisions, and retrieve
information from national and local authorities; and (ii) external costs, i.e. when consultants
are resorted to provide information on unknown or uncertain legal provisions. Companies are
likely to use PCPC for small or medium-complexity requests; for very complex issues, a
company is likely to resort to its own internal resources or to external consultants in any case.
The time saved for each request is based on Consultants’ expert assessment; the degree of
complexity of the various requests to PCPC is assumed over three different scenarios.
Based on the number of requests as extrapolated from a study by RPA, the average hourly
salary rate for a technician inclusive of overheads (EUR 23.2, source: Eurostat Earnings
Statistics), the time saved per request and the scenarios, the
range of administrative cost
savings for businesses linked to the use of the PCPC then ranges between EUR 760 000
and EUR 1.2 million.
However, this estimation of cost savings is based on a very low
number of received requests for some countries, such as 100 for France, 50 for Spain and 60
for Sweden. (The corresponding figures are 500 requests for Norway and 672 requests for the
Netherlands). Given the large magnitude of cross-border trading of goods within the Single
Market, it is likely that the low figures for some countries do not represent the real business
demand but are caused by low awareness of the PCPCs' existence amongst the business
community. There may be large untapped demand which is not reflected and the savings
potential for businesses may be much larger.
299
300
Guidelines for improving consistency across PCPCs and PCPs, Ecorys, 2017.
Supporting Study for the Fitness Check on the Construction Sector: EU internal market and energy
efficiency legislation, 2016.
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A recent survey as part of a study
301
asked Member States to estimate the costs of running the
PCP and PCPC in terms of Full-Time Equivalents (FTE). Only very few Member States
replied to this question. Estimated PCPCs' costs are between 0.25 FTE (Czech Republic) and
3 FTE (Poland), with Sweden and Ireland both dedicating 1 FTE. Bulgaria explained that the
PCPC is being developed by European Structural Funds for the cost of 330 000 BGN
(168 729 euros). Slovenia joint PCP/PCPC uses 1 FTE.
These FTE need to be compared to the number of requests dealt with. According to the same
survey, in which only 10 PCPC participated, the number of requests is very low and varies –
between 15 for the Cypriot PCPC and 114 for the Croatian PCPC. However, figures are being
calculated differently (some taking phone calls into account while others don't) and thus need
to be treated with care. But they give an indication of the generally speaking very low number
of requests.
The Construction Products Regulation (CPR) contains the same recital as the Mutual
Recognition Regulation (MRR) as regards the possibility to entrust the role of PCPC to
existing contact points already established, to prevent the unnecessary proliferation of contact
points. However, less than half of the Member States followed up on this and built the PCPC
on an existing PCP.
Conclusion: There is not enough information available on the efficiency of the PCPCs. The
use of the PCPC can save a business significant costs. However, this is currently rather
theoretical, as most businesses are not using the PCPCs. The number of requests submitted to
them is low and seems not in line with actual business demand. The conclusion reached for
the PCPs is also valid for the PCPCs: the (for many Member States) low quality of their
PCPC websites represents a missed opportunity for Member States in terms of the possibility
to reduce the number of requests and to be even more cost-efficient.
SOLVIT
Whilst difficult to quantify, it is clear that by centralising expertise and providing an agreed
framework, SOLVIT has been able to provide an efficient mechanism for the resolution of
individual problems linked to potential breach of EU law to citizens and businesses, to
Member States' administrations and to European Commission services. The most efficient
alternative means of redress to SOLVIT are national courts proceedings and formal
infringement procedures which are lengthy and costly. In December 2015, around 732
infringement proceedings were pending in the area of the Single Market. On average,
infringement proceedings take 30 months to address the issues contested
302
.
The staff numbers and therefore the staffing costs vary between the Member States. In 2015,
the staffing levels for the SOLVIT centres were assessed (time to be spent on SOLVIT work)
in relation to the caseload. The number of staff (FTEs or full-time equivalents) is determined
by the caseload of the SOLVIT centres:
-
-
-
small SOLVIT centres (16-50 cases) => 1 FTE
medium SOLVIT centres (51-150 cases) => 2 FTEs
large SOLVIT centres (151-300 cases) => 3 FTEs
301
302
Guidelines for improving consistency across PCPCs and PCP, Ecorys, 2017.
Idem.
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-
very large SOLVIT centres (over 300 cases) => 3.5 FTEs
Out of 8 small centres, 5 did not meet the target staffing. The same applies for 2 out of 10
medium centres, 4 out of 9 large centres and all 4 very large centres.
The cost of support from the Commission Services is also not easily quantifiable. The support
is provided from the EC SOLVIT team within DG GROW and from case handlers in other
DGs as SOLVIT covers the whole spectrum of the Single Market legislation (i.e. preparation
of informal legal opinions). On the other hand, the benefits of the SOLVIT intervention in
individual problems result in the release of Commission Services' resources from complaint
handling and pursuit of formal infringement proceedings.
However, the benefits are considered to be significantly greater than the costs for citizens and
businesses, Member States' administrations and to European Commission services.
It is even more difficult to quantify the costs and benefits of SOLVIT when contributing to a
better functioning Single Market by fostering and promoting better compliance with Union
law, as this entails reforms and changes in the administrative practice and legislation of
Member States. In the 2015 Single Market Scoreboard, the number of infringement
proceedings has slightly decreased over the last six months (-2%, from 749 to 732). This
overall reduction of cases can in part be attributed to the implementation of a number of
measures such as the introduction of EU-Pilot in April 2008. Since that time, the number of
cases has gone down by 44%. Like SOLVIT, EU-Pilot facilitates cooperation between the
Member States and the Commission to address non-compliance or the incorrect application of
EU law before infringement proceedings are launched
303
Finally, as regards the benefits of SOLVIT in terms of administrative burden, the use of IMI
and the online SOLVIT database results in a reduction of the administrative burden in
comparison to the use of off-line means of cooperation. Additionally, the services of
administrative cooperation between the two Member States involved in handling a SOLVIT
case, through the use of the IMI
304
SOLVIT database, reduces the administrative burden for
citizens and businesses in comparison to the scenario of dealing directly with the public
authority in the Member State causing the problem.
Conclusion: SOLVIT is providing an efficient alternative dispute settlement mechanism that
delivers benefits to (a) mostly citizens and to a much less extent businesses in comparison to
costly and lengthy legal proceedings, (b) Member States that do have the obligation to
implement EU law correctly and to ensure that it is correctly applied, as otherwise they would
have to engage in costly and lengthy legal proceedings at the national level and formal
infringement proceedings at the EU level and (c) Commission Services in their role as the
guardian of the treaties, as otherwise they would have to engage in costly and lengthy formal
infringement proceedings. The use of IMI for the handling of SOLVIT cases reduces the
administrative burden for the SOLVIT centres. Moreover, the use of SOLVIT reduces the
administrative burden for individuals and businesses engaged in cross-border activity.
303
304
See performance per governance tool at:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/infringements/index_en.
htm
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/eu_pilot/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/solvit/index_en.htm.
IMI (Internal Market Information System) is Commission-run.
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Your Europe
No efficiency analysis of Your Europe has yet been done. With a yearly budget of € 650,000
(excluding promotion) and 4.5 Commission staff working on it full-time (this excludes
resources that contribute to Your Europe from other departments of the Commission as
well as agencies and Member States), the portal registers currently 17 million visits a year,
with constantly increasing user figures. Online user surveys register very positive
satisfaction levels with the portals, and 70% of users found, partially or fully, what they
were looking for.
Conclusion: Your Europe has been successful in allowing citizens and businesses to obtain
relevant information at a reasonable cost.
Your Europe Advice
The total costs of the YEA service have increased from EUR 1.49 million in 2011/2012 to
about EUR 1.8 million in 2016, accounting for the growing number of enquiries handled by
the service during these past years.
The evaluation replied to the question whether the direct and indirect costs (for the citizen and
for the EU institutions) of YEA per reply are adequate in comparison to other comparable
possibilities citizens have to get the same level of advice (e.g. ask a lawyer, send a question to
the European Commission or a national administration). It concludes that the cost
benchmarking between YEA and the Europe Direct Call Centres as well as a number of
private services suggests that the cost of the YEA service to the Commission is overall
reasonable.
In terms of the estimated normalised cost per hour (EUR 94.06) the YEA cost is somewhat
higher than the estimated cost of the Europe Direct Call Centres (EUR 88.26), but this is to be
expected, considering the more specialised nature of the YEA service.
The cost of YEA is favourable if the cost per hour is examined against the hourly fees charged
by private legal service providers, with the YEA hourly cost in line with the lowest hourly
fees collected from the new Member States
305
.
As regards processes and procedures in place (case handling IT tool, other tools, human
resources, workflows and organisational solutions), these are judged to be overall adequate.
Service efficiency of Your Europe Advice is measured primarily by the speed of replies. The
aim is to reply to enquiries within 3 working days. Over 95% of replies are sent within that
deadline and over 99% within four working days. The increase in the number of enquiries
handled by the service has not affected the efficiency nor effectiveness of the service. Users
are overall satisfied with the quality of the replies. In total 80% are satisfied or very satisfied
with the service received.
305
i.e. the 13 most recent EU enlargements.
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Conclusion: YEA is an efficient service in terms of service delivery and service organisation,
and is meeting the needs of most of its users. Its costs to the Commission are assessed to be
appropriate if compared to similar possibilities citizens have to get the same level of legal
advice.
Enterprise Europe Network
According to a 2015 publication about the network, it has answered 600 000 questions on EU
issues since 2008 to the satisfaction of most client SMEs. The most recent evaluation of the
EEN (based on the
period 2008-2014, under the CIP programme)
points out that the importance
of "information" for the partners exceeded the allocation of resources for this activity. The
EEN partners considered the budget for information well spent in terms of benefits for SMEs.
However, the same evaluation also pointed out that
SME clients attribute the highest
importance to the higher end services of the Network, in particular business cooperation,
innovation support and technology transfer.
In the context of the COSME programme, a strategic decision was taken to shift the focus of
EEN services away from information, towards creating impact for businesses.
Conclusion: The EEN partners consider the budget for information well spent in terms of
benefits for SMEs.
EURES
Within the EURES network about 1 500 persons are actively contributing to information and
assistance, of which 950 are qualified by the individual member organizations as EURES
advisers.
The overall envelope spent on EURES services in the Union is estimated to be around € 60
million, essentially covering the staff cost and related overheads. The EU budget spent on
EURES is € 20-22 million per year, within the EaSI Programme.
Following the 2010 report on EURES activities, it was estimated that the EURES network
provides around 150 000 recruitments/placements per year. Of these, 50 000 were attributed
to the work of the EURES Advisers, and 100 000 were – based on estimations and
extrapolation – attributed to the functioning of its portal
306
. Figures were further elaborated in
the impact assessment accompanying the 2014 proposal.
The activities of the EURES network have been monitored since 2012 under the Single
Market Scoreboard. It uses 5 indicators which inter alia provide information on the activities
of EURES advisers and the vacancies posted on EURES as a proportion of national vacancies.
The global indicator (all 5 indicators combined) shows that 3 countries are below average, 8
above average and the rest average.
Some examples of possible better cost efficiencies were referred to in reports provided by
EURES member organisations and Cross Border Partnerships, including:
306
Figures come from the Impact Assessment for the 2016 EURES Regulation, SWD(2014) 9 final,
17/1/2014.
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- Further integration/mainstreaming of EURES into the Public Employment Service (PES)
through increased training: “An increased mainstreaming with PES will lead to increased
efficiency; there is only a small number of EURES advisors, and if the rest of the PES
staff could provide information on EURES and EURES-services there is a great
possibility for higher efficiency”.
- The development of synergies through the joint EURES- and ESF-funded projects.
- The creation of one-stop-shops where clients can find all the information needed in one
place.
- The increased use of modern technologies and communications.
Conclusion: According to the Single Market Scoreboard, most Member States' EURES
services perform to an "average" benchmark of quality. Recommendations for how to turn
EURES into a more cost effective service suggest that there is room for improvement.
European Consumer Centres Network
The Network is co-financed by the European Commission, the EU Member States, Norway
and Iceland. The EU grant allocation to the ECCs for the year 2010 was EUR 4.5 million.
With the addition of national co-financing, costs of running the ECC-Net amount to EUR 8 to
9 million per annum.
According to the evaluation
307
, monetary redress secured by consumers following ECC action
is estimated to be over EUR 14 million for the period January to November 2010.
This means that the direct financial benefit accruing to consumers as a result of the ECCs’
actions outweighs the cost to the tax payer of supporting the ECCs. The Network delivered
direct financial benefits to consumers of at least 1.77 times its cost to the taxpayer during
2010.
According to data on the 2016 Single Market Scoreboard, the network had over
93 964
contacts from consumers in 2015. ECCs received over
38 048 complaints.
In 2015, the
Network was able to help over half the complainants. 51% of complex cases (where more
than one centre had to be involved) were resolved amicably. 16.35% of the closed complex
complaints were transferred to other organisations (of which 26% were alternative dispute
resolution entities; 11.1% to enforcement bodies and 27.8% to courts).
The ECC-Net evaluation suggests that some ECCs are adequately resourced; while others are
not (particularly those hosted by NGOs). According to the results of the ECC survey, 52% (or
15 out of 29 ECCs) are of the opinion that they are adequately resourced; compared to 48%
(or 14 ECCs) who think otherwise. Moreover, a vast majority of the ECCs (24 ECCs) indicate
that they have little or no margin to deal with a sudden increase in the level of enquiries; and
their present level of funding is too little to deliver additional promotional activity or an
increased volume of consumer enquiries. A number of ECCs have experienced financial
constraints and uncertainty (particularly those hosted by NGOs) as a result of the system of
annual funding and uncertainties with respect to national co-financing. These pressures can be
expected to worsen in the coming years as EU and national budgets come under increasing
pressure and scrutiny.
307
Evaluation of the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net), CPEC, 2011.
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The ECC-Net evaluation suggests:
- Improving the results orientation of the Network by introducing measurable performance
benchmarks and performance-based incentives, and making the continuation of funding
conditional upon individual ECCs demonstrating a positive benefits-cost ratio;
- Ensuring that activities of individual centres particularly promotional activities,
networking and feedback functions are underpinned by a clear intervention logic in order
to justify support;
- Replacing the current system of annual grants with a system of framework partnership
agreements.
Conclusion: The ECC Network has delivered direct financial benefits to consumers of at least
1.77 times its cost to the taxpayer during 2010. On this basis, the ECCs are operating
efficiently. However, there is scope for improvement, and the evaluation recommends the
introduction of measurable performance benchmarks and performance based incentives, and
making positive results a condition for further funding. 48% of ECCs consider their funding
insufficient.
To what extent have the instruments, taken together, been successful in allowing citizens
and businesses to obtain relevant information, to complete procedures electronically, to
benefit from high-quality services that are easy to find at a reasonable cost to public
administrations and to society at large?
Since evidence and data for this section is incomplete (especially for the national level), it is
difficult to draw any conclusions on the overall efficiency. However, it seems obvious that
coordinated promotion of the instruments could lead to more cost savings and better user
awareness than the individual actions. Your Europe has an annual promotion budget of
around EUR 450 000. With a slight increase of that budget, the annual promotion effort at EU
level could probably be fully covered – if done via one "umbrella brand" substituting
individual EU-level promotion efforts.
Also, there is a certain potential overlap in scope and duplication of effort. On the EU level,
content is duplicated on various websites. The scope of the advice services that are EU-level
initiatives can overlap somewhat: YEA and the Europe Direct Call Centres are often receiving
similar queries – but an active referral policy is in place where one or the other service is
better suited to reply. A well performing single brand search engine, and/or a common online
enquiry form on the national level
308
, could probably ensure even better that user requests are
channelled immediately to the most suitable service.
Overview of "efficiency" conclusions
PSCs:
The Services Directive generates costs to public authorities, as it obliged them to set up
and run online points of single contact. Often, the PSCs are embedded in countries' general e-
government portals and IT infrastructure. Reliable and comparable cost figures for PSCs do
not exist. The figures that are available are divergent and incomplete (e.g. missing user figures
for the benefit side) that no conclusions on efficiency can be drawn.
308
A common online enquiry form currently exists on the Your Europe portal and sign-posts users to the most
suitable assistance service.
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PCPs:
There is not enough information available on the efficiency of the PCPs. What can be
said is that PCPs are only partially effective and are under-used by economic operators, who
generally resort to much more expensive solutions to meet their needs. The (for many
Member States) low quality of their PCP websites represents a missed opportunity for
Member States in terms of the possibility to reduce the number of requests and to be even
more cost-efficient.
PCPCs:
The use of the PCPC can save a business significant costs. However, this is currently
rather theoretical, as most businesses are not using the PCPCs. The number of requests
submitted to them is low and not in line with actual business demand. Member States have set
up the PCPCs in a cost-efficient way. The conclusion reached for the PCPs is also valid for
the PCPCs: the (for many Member States) low quality of their PCPC websites represents a
missed opportunity for Member States in terms of the possibility to reduce the number of
requests and to be even more cost-efficient.
SOLVIT
is providing an efficient alternative dispute settlement mechanism that delivers
benefits to (a) mostly citizens and to a much less extent businesses in comparison to costly
and lengthy legal proceedings, (b) Member States that do have the obligation to implement
EU law correctly and to ensure that it is correctly applied, as otherwise they would have to
engage in costly and lengthy legal proceedings at the national level and formal infringement
proceedings at the EU level and (c) Commission Services in their role as the guardian of the
treaties, as otherwise they would have to engage in costly and lengthy formal infringement
proceedings. The use of IMI for the handling of SOLVIT cases reduces the administrative
burden for the SOLVIT centres. Moreover, the use of SOLVIT reduces the administrative
burden for individuals and businesses engaged in cross-border activity.
Your Europe
has been successful in allowing citizens and businesses to obtain relevant
information at a reasonable cost.
YEA
is an efficient service in terms of service delivery and service organisation, and is
meeting the needs of most of its users. Its costs to the Commission are assessed to be
appropriate if compared to similar possibilities citizens have to get the same level of legal
advice.
The
EEN
partners consider the budget for information well spent in terms of benefits for
SMEs.
EURES:
According to the Single Market Scoreboard, most Member States' EURES services
perform to an "average" benchmark of quality. Recommendations for how to turn EURES
into a more cost effective service suggest that there is room for improvement.
The
ECC Network
has delivered direct financial benefits to consumers of at least 1.77 times
its cost to the taxpayer during 2010. On this basis, the ECCs are operating efficiently.
However, there is scope for improvement, and the evaluation recommends the introduction of
measurable performance benchmarks and performance based incentives, and making positive
results a condition for further funding. 48% of ECCs consider their funding insufficient.
Taken together, there is scope for more efficiency on the EU (and possibly also national) level
through coordinated promotion of the services using a common name for co-branding. A well
performing common brand search engine, and/or a common online enquiry form on the
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national level, could probably better ensure that user requests are channels to the most suitable
service immediately. This is currently not done in the most efficient way.
3.4.3
The relevance and coherence of the existing framework
Relevance: To what extent are the current services to businesses and citizens relevant?
To what extent are they meeting their needs? To what extent are the current
instruments in line with current trends of digitalisation?
Coherence: To what extent are the different instruments coherent with each other? To
what extent does the existing framework promote synergies, work well together and or
point towards tensions and overlaps? To what extent does the existing framework take
account of the fact that services and products are increasingly part of the same value
chain? Is there evidence of gaps, loopholes or inconsistencies across the existing
framework?
Evaluations, public consultation results, studies and surveys conducted show that the
instruments which form part of this evaluation are considered relevant by their target
audiences. They cater to the need of citizens and businesses for information, assistance and
procedures in order to more easily navigate the Single Market and engage in cross-border
activities. An overwhelming majority of business and citizens participating in the online
public consultation consider it important or very important to have online access to
information about rules and procedures in other EU countries (93% of businesses and 92% of
citizens), access to e-procedures cross-borders ( 94% and 92% respectively) and access to
services providing assistance upon request (88% and 87% respectively). Most respondents
would also look for information on the internet. Therefore the relevance of these initiatives is
high.
Whilst most of the instruments have adapted to the digital trend and services are available
online, this is not the case for all the PCPs and PCPCs. Some do not have an online presence,
and where they do, the quality of the website may be very rudimentary. Others may be
online, but are very difficult to find (e.g. through a google search and without knowing the
exact name), such as Your Europe Advice and SOLVIT
309
. The issue of visibility, findability
and awareness of the services is a cross-cutting problem.
The existing EU legal framework contains gaps. An obvious gap concerns the citizen side.
Apart from the Health Contact Points providing information to citizens about other countries'
health systems, and the European Job Mobility Portal informing citizens about living and
working conditions, social security and tax payments, national employment rules and relevant
administrative procedures, EU law does not oblige Member States to provide information to
citizens. For the Your Europe portal the Commission works together with Member States on a
voluntary basis in order to offer this information to citizens. The effectiveness of this
approach depends very heavily on personal commitment and good will of individual persons
with no guarantee for continuity and sustainability.
309
For the mentioned services this is intentional, as "second level support services" in line with the cascade
approach.
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There are also legal gaps on the business side. The Services Directive is not exhaustive, and
several important fields are not part of it
310
and therefore formally need not be covered by the
PSCs. However, many PSCs do cover at least some of these fields voluntarily (and this has
also been the approach of the PSC Charter), but the Charter cannot be enforced and there are
significant gaps in its implementation as shown in the most recent study on the PSCs.
311
The scope of the PCPs is confined to the non-harmonised sector, which means that businesses
are only receiving half of the answer to their question which rules (EU + national) are
applying to their products. This, together with low visibility and quality issues, may explain
why hardly any businesses are using the PCPs.
The existing legal framework promotes synergies. The legal instruments that established the
PSCs, PCPs and PCPCs all foresee the possibility, and even encourage, that the contact points
be established as parts of already existing contact points, networks, structures or even relevant
private bodies. When the Professional Qualifications Directive ("PQD", of 2005, amended in
2013) set up professional qualifications contact points in 2013, with online information on
requirements, procedures and formalities, it laid down that these were to be established on the
(existing) Points of Single Contact of the Services Directive. However, where this was not
provided in a legally binding way, most Member States have not acted upon this possibility
(thus potentially also missing out on cost savings). A notable exception is Lithuania, which
has set up its business contact points as part of one institution and one website. A recent
study
312
which analysed the inter-linkages between the PSC, PCP and PCPC websites found
that even within the Member States, cross-linking of contact point websites is not done, let
alone to other Member States' contact point websites.
This is all the more regrettable as businesses frequently require information on both services
and product rules at the same time. The current trend of "servitisation" means that products
and services are increasingly part of the same value chain. As stated in the Evaluation of
Internal Market Legislation for Industrial Products, the distinction between product and
services markets is becoming ever more blurred, in part because consumers increasingly
demand high-quality after-sales services. "Instead of selling a product with a service, there is
a tendency of selling a service with a product (e.g. mobile phones)". The results of the public
consultation on the single digital gateway show that a majority of businesses (80.87%) would
be in favour of merging the contact points for goods and services. 70% of respondent public
authorities consider this as desirable or very desirable, with some considering this integration
difficult or somewhat difficult (27.5% and 47.5% respectively).
310
311
312
The Directive does not apply to the following services: financial services; electronic communications
services with respect to matters covered by other EU instruments; transport services falling within the
scope of Title VI of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); healthcare services
provided by health professionals to assess, maintain or restore the state of patients' health where those
activities are reserved to a regulated health profession; temporary work agencies' services; private security
services; audio-visual services; gambling; certain social services provided by the State, by providers
mandated by the State or by charities recognised by the State; services provided by notaries and bailiffs
appointed by an official act of government. The Directive does not apply in the field of taxation.
Business Europe concludes in its submission to the REFIT platform that the voluntary Charter approach
"has not delivered the desired results".
Screening Report on Member States Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for Construction by
Ecorys, 2017.
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The business representative organisation "BusinessEurope" has called on Member States to
transform the existing Points of Single Contact into fully-fledged online business portals (for
goods and services) offering companies all the information and assistance they need to
operate across borders and on the home market, including offering the possibility to complete
procedures entirely online
313
. This is also one key demand of the REFIT stakeholder platform
and mostly shared by the REFIT government group
314
. Member States have not (or rarely)
acted upon this trend in the set-up of their contact points for businesses. In a recent report
315
the European Parliament considered the implementation of the present system built around a
diverse range of contact points, including Product Contact Points and Single Points of Contact
as inconsistent across Member States and overly complex.
The EU-mandated assistance services have been actively promoting synergies between
themselves through sign-posting mechanisms. YEA, SOLVIT, the EEN, the ECCs and
EURES all sign-post requests, where relevant, to other services. The EEN has made this its
official policy ("no wrong door policy"). Your Europe connects the EU and the national level
and sign-posts to a large range of other services. It runs a "common intake form" in the form
of a "help and advice" button that guides users to a large range of relevant (EU-mandated)
assistance and problem-solving services, with some operating on the national level: SOLVIT,
Your Europe Advice, Points of Single Contact, Product Contact Points, EURES, ECC-Net
and Fin-net. The Your Europe "help and advice" signposting has helped to lower the number
of cases that had been incorrectly directed to SOLVIT. Furthermore, Your Europe Advice is
providing a supporting role to SOLVIT in terms of providing legal advice to fill current gaps.
The SOLVIT Recommendation contains provisions on cooperation with other networks and
contact points. To ensure that applicants get effective help, SOLVIT centres should cooperate
with other European and national information and help networks, such as Your Europe,
Europe Direct, Your Europe Advice, the Enterprise Europe Network, European Consumer
Centres, EURES, Fin-Net and the European Network of Ombudsmen. Cooperation between
SOLVIT and other organisations predominantly takes the form of signposting cases from one
organisation to the other. Complaints and questions can now be directly transferred from
SOLVIT to Your Europe Advice and the Europe Direct Contact Centre and vice versa. In
addition, SOLVIT is coherent with the European Commission's complaint handling and
enforcement policy
316
.
The evaluations, however, also point to inefficiencies resulting from lack of coherence.
According to the YEA evaluation, around one fourth of the enquiries currently addressed by
the YEA service could have been answered by the information readily available on the Your
Europe portal. The evaluation data suggest that almost one fourth of all YEA users did not
visit the Your Europe portal prior to submitting their case to YEA. On the EU level, a lot of
other Commission services are duplicating on their websites information that is already being
offered by Your Europe, which is not only inefficient but also confusing to the user.
313
314
315
316
See for example the Business Europe Strategy Paper "Remaining obstacles to a true single market for
services" of December 2014.
REFIT Platform Opinion on the submission by the Danish Business Forum and Businesseurope on the
Point of Single Contact, June 2016. The government Group also recommended "one single entry point with
clear information and coordinated services in each Member State".
EP, Report on Non-Tariff Barriers in the Single Market, 2016.
See 'Better Governance for the Single Market', European Commission Communication COM (2012) 259
final.
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The YEA evaluation also shows that there is an overlap in scope of YEA with the mandates of
the European Consumer Centres network, the EURES centres and the national contact points
for professional qualifications.
A coherent "quality approach" to the instruments is lacking. There are "families" of
instruments providing either or a mix of: information, assistance services and procedures.
Whereas YEA and SOLVIT have very detailed (in the case of YEA even contractual) quality
criteria the respect of which is being monitored, the ECC, EURES, the PCPs and PCPCs do
not and this impacts on the quality of the service. The Services Directive (and PSC Charter)
also contains a detailed list of quality provisions, but nothing comparable exists for the
product side (PCPs and PCPCs). A coverage gap exists with regard to information: Your
Europe lacks parts of Member State information on certain specific topics. The latter is due to
the voluntary nature of information provision to YE and the resulting lack of leverage of the
Commission.
Visibility of the instruments is another general concern. Target audiences are currently too
unlikely to discover the appropriate assistance. The 'Smart Single Market Regulation' study of
the European Parliament points out that the level of awareness of the various assistance
services and the understanding of their scope and functions is very limited among European
citizens and businesses. None of the tools was known by more than 25% of surveyed citizens,
and the lowest awareness levels amounted to just 1% of survey respondent. Users often do not
understand the complementarities and differences between the tools
317
. Businesses
participating in the online public consultation on the single digital gateway indicated that the
first reason why they consider it difficult to find information is that it is hard to find the right
website (48%).
All the instruments covered are relevant for and coherent with the current Commission's ten
priorities, which includes a 'deeper and fairer Internal Market' and a 'connected Digital Single
Market'. To ensure a fairer Single Market, the EU must address the concerns of both citizens
and businesses. They must have the assurance that the Single Market works in practice and
feel empowered to benefit from it.
318
In the context of ensuring practical delivery, the Single
Market Strategy stresses the importance of a culture of compliance and smart enforcement to
be achieved inter alia through strengthening and streamlining the Single Market
problem-solving tools. Furthermore, the "start-up initiative" aims to remove administrative
burdens to the starting and scaling-up of companies' activities, including through initiatives to
facilitate the use of digital technologies. The Digital Single Market Strategy aims to create the
right conditions for networks to flourish in the digital economy.
3.4.4
The utility and EU added value of the existing framework
What is the additional value resulting from current interventions at EU level when it
comes to the services covered, compared to what could be achieved by Member States at
national and/or regional level?
317
318
According to the December 2015-January 2016 panel survey on the European Internal Market conducted
by the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, the 80% of Dutch entrepreneurs who are doing business in the
internal market have never heard of the listed online information and advisory services.
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic
and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions
“Upgrading the Single Market: more
opportunities for people and business”,
Brussels, 28.10.2015 COM (2015) 550 final.
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To what extent does this continue to require action at EU level? What would be the most
likely consequences of stopping for withdrawing current EU actions in the field?
Generally speaking, the impacts of the instruments covered by this evaluation have been
positive (though to varying degrees) for citizens and businesses, and the EU has created added
value. In this section, the (positive) "EU added value" will be described first, followed by a
more critical assessment.
The Services Directive addresses issues which have a clear cross-border dimension. EU-level
action has created legal certainty for service providers going cross-border, and the PSCs
facilitate the required administrative process by requiring online procedures that can also be
completed across borders.
The EU-mandated contact points all provide support for the implementation of EU legislation,
and make other Member States' markets more accessible to businesses.
The wide mandate of SOLVIT covers all EU law governing the Single Market, including the
four freedoms and supporting policies that have a direct impact on the Single Market. There is
an EU added value due to the necessity on the one hand to provide fast and informal problem
solving services to citizens and business when their EU rights are not respected by public
authorities and on the other hand to contribute to a better functioning Single Market by
fostering and promoting better compliance with EU law.
SOLVIT meets the need of EU citizens and businesses for an easy and informal out of court
solution to their cross-border complaints regarding misapplication of EU law by national
authorities. In terms of providing this kind of solution in the Internal Market area, SOLVIT is
the only service provider currently covering this niche. With increasing numbers of EU
citizens living in other Member States, there is growing demand for this service, and a
growing SOLVIT caseload. SOLVIT fits a clear market segment which is supported by the
user survey finding that the majority of citizens feel that no alternative service currently
exists.
The same applies to the ECC Network, which provides help to citizens for their cross-border
consumer problems with foreign traders. It is unlikely that Member States acting alone would
have (been able to) set up this Network. The EEN and YEA – two services which are
appreciated highly by mobile EU citizens and businesses – would not exist without EU
funding.
EURES has become a pan-EU cooperation mechanism of employment services that needed
EU legislation in order to succeed. There is no earmarked or specifically allocated budget
nationally to support mobility, and overall it appears very unlikely that national funding
sources could have enabled a similar scope and scale of activities. In addition, the funding
provided through EURES has strengthened the network of EURES advisers, which in turn led
to initiatives and joint activities between countries, thereby further integrating the European
labour market.
Your Europe presents information for mobile businesses and citizens covering the EU and the
national level. This kind of "information partnership" between the Commission and Member
States can only be brokered and implemented through EU-level coordination action.
***
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However, the potential "network effect" that could be achieved by closer collaboration of all
the individual instruments presented in this evaluation, could be very much higher. All these
instruments are important to businesses and citizens exploiting the opportunities of the Single
Market. Yet they are not presented as a whole anywhere online, but in isolation
319
. If the
services functioned as a network, they should also live up to common quality standards,
proposed by the Commission and agreed by Member States, which is currently not the case.
In this respect, coherence is missing.
This logic also applies to the individual cases databases operated by YEA, SOLVIT, EEN and
the ECC. All these case databases contain significant evidence of problems citizens and
businesses experience with the internal market 'on the ground'. However, these cases are not
brought together in a single database (per broad topic), not analysed collectively and not
exploited for global internal market policy-making.
This is confirmed by the study 'Smart Single Market Regulation' of London Economics for the
European Parliament
320
, which highlights that the Single Market tools potentially offer
valuable information about the issues hindering a successful implementation of the different
Single Market areas. This information could be used to inform new policy priorities and
adjustments to existing programmes and policies. Conversely, policy adjustments might be
able to address those factors that impair the effectiveness of assistance tools.
The study 'Smart Single Market Regulation' of London Economics for the European
Parliament
321
also notes that demand for the services provided by the Single Market
governance tools (which are all covered in this evaluation) has been continuously rising in the
last decade. However, there is room for improving their effectiveness. In particular, long case
handling periods (e.g. SOLVIT, ECC Net) and limited expertise of network staff (e.g. EEN,
EURES) were mentioned. In addition, Member States do not always contribute as positively
to the performance of the tools as they should (e.g. Your Europe). It concludes that, in order
to use existing tools more effectively at the policy execution stage, coordination efforts and
information flows between the different tools as well as between the tools and national
authorities have to be enhanced.
Along the same lines, in April 2016 the European Parliament
322
stated its concern with the
low level of awareness and understanding among Europeans of the services available, such as
Your Europe, Your Europe Advice and SOLVIT, and noted that only 4 % of consumers and
companies are aware of such tools and that the level of take-up of these services is very low at
present. It called on the Commission and the Member States, with a view to resolving this
problem, to foster further awareness of such tools, while examining whether the outcomes and
responses they generate are adequate for users. Furthermore, it called on the Commission to
work on better cooperation between the various assistance services, such as Your Europe and
SOLVIT, with the aim of increasing user satisfaction.
319
320
321
322
However, Your Europe is acting as a gateway that links to various services.
See 'Smart Single Market Regulation' (IP/A/IMCO/2015-02 PE 563.442), London Economics for the
European Parliament, Directorate General for Internal Policies, Policy Department A, Economic and
Scientific Policy at the request of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee.
Idem.
See Resolution 'Towards improved single market regulation',P8_TA(2016)0105, (2015/2089(INI)),
European Parliament, April 2016.
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The EU could create additional value by creating a common recognisable brand under which
all the services could operate, without necessarily losing their own labels, backed up by a
common brand search engine and common quality criteria. This is currently lacking.
3.4.5
Why have the initiatives covered by this evaluation not fully delivered for their
intended beneficiaries, and what problems has this caused?
The existing initiatives have all been designed with the best of intentions, but have not fully
delivered and display weaknesses that should be explained by the underlying reasons. The
underlying reasons are deeply rooted in national (and EU) administrations, and only strong
and determined action will stand a chance of improving the current situation.
So which factors are chiefly to blame for the current under-performance of the instruments?
Silo based, administration-centred approaches, leading to fragmentation
All the instruments were constructed in isolation – without first checking how they fit into the
bigger picture and what already exists, and whether existing structures could be built upon to
make it less confusing and easier to find for the user. Both at EU and national level,
administrations and Directorates-Generals have set up their own websites and assistance
services, which are sometimes overlapping but also leaving very significant gaps in coverage.
No overall governance structure, encompassing the EU and national level, exists to ensure
consistency and a user-centric approach. No "overall concept" has been driving the website
and service creation, and nobody has ever evaluated whether what is online forms a "coherent
whole" for the user, in particular the cross-border one. This is the task of this evaluation, and
it concludes that the state of play is an inconsistent set of initiatives without an overall user-
oriented vision behind it.
There are various national contact points (for services, products, construction products,
professional qualifications cross-border healthcare) that cater either to businesses or citizens,
or both. Some of the legal bases require that information should be provided online, others do
not. Very often, the target groups need to address more than one contact point when planning
cross-border activities. But the individual contact points are usually run by separate national
institutions which do not bother to inter-link contact points, to present them via one portal or
to think of other ways (e.g. online questionnaires) of guiding users to the most appropriate
one(s). Most services and goods contact points do not provide links to the other points even
within the same country, let alone other countries
323
.
Only one Member State has so far brought together the services and goods contact points on
one website, and one Member State runs an online enquiry form that guides businesses to the
right contact point. Yet business stakeholders
324
(e.g. Business Europe and Danish Business
Forum as part of a submission to the REFIT Platform) have called for precisely this, as well
as EuroChambres and EuroCommerce in their calls for single online business portals per
Member State. When a recent study
325
asked each country's product contact points' views as
to a potential future joint national PCP and PCPC website, only few replies were received.
323
324
325
Result of Screening Report on Member States' Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for
Construction", Ecorys, 2017
See appendix 1: Business stakeholder positions.
Screening Report on Member States Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for Construction,
2017.
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They were about evenly split between positive and negative reactions. The reasons given for a
negative view were one-off transition costs and the fact that different authorities are running
the two contact points.
The EU and national-level silo based approach has led to fragmentation and unnecessary
complexity that makes navigating the web for information confusing and difficult for the user.
EU and national administrations designing services from their perspective, not that of the
user
When administrations prepare information for online publication, they tend to make this as
easy as possible for themselves. Online information is often presented with legal jargon,
limited to legal texts, is not systematically updated and does not cover everything the user
needs to know.
326
Assistance services do not publish their average response times or what
kind of quality the user can expect of them, or do not ask for user feedback on the quality of
the service. The product contact points are not even required to have a website, and their
replies only refer to the "non-harmonised" parts of products but not the harmonised sector
Procedures are often not designed with the user in mind (who wants simple, intuitive
procedures that can be carried out online) but follow the logic of the administration. For
example, the very typical life event of "starting a business" contains the registration with the
company register, VAT registration and registration with social security scheme. But these are
not combined in a one-stop shop but remain separate
327
. The result of this administration-
centric design of services is that they do not fully meet user needs, and that quality is
deficient.
Furthermore, the "silo based approach" as outlined before has prevented a common approach
to quality that could provide some guarantee of common basic quality standards to the user.
The current patchwork (see table below: mix of degrees of quality standards and whether
(contractually) binding or voluntary) cannot work as a coherent whole. The user does not
know what to expect as most existing quality standards are not made public or are very
difficult to find out (e.g. only by consulting an EU legal act), and will most likely not
complain. If no user feedback mechanisms exist where feedback is used to improve the
quality, this is basically made impossible in any case.
326
327
This is also supported by the 2016 eGovernment Benchmark report. User centricity: governments have
advanced in making public services digital, but focussed less on the quality of the delivery from the user's
perspective, which advanced poorly.
See World Bank Doing Business national statistics on "starting a business",
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data.
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Table 3.2
Level of quality
standard, soft
or hard
law
Instruments
Points of Single Contact
Product Contact Points
Product Contact Points for
Construction
SOLVIT
Your Europe
x
Your Europe Advice
Enterprise Europe
Network
EURES
European Consumer
Centres Network
x
x
(binding
contractually)
x (binding
contractually)
x
x
x
x (Charter)
x
x
x
x
Well-
developed,
legally
binding
Medium,
Legally
binding
Well-
developed,
voluntary
Medium,
voluntary
Very basic,
legally
binding
Very basic,
voluntary
The evaluation shows that well-developed but voluntary approaches to quality can work well
if all Member States are fully on board. However, they can also quickly reach their limits in
an environment of scarce resources competing for attention with legally binding tasks. This is
the case for Your Europe, SOLVIT and the Charter for the Points of Single Contact. The of
business stakeholders, who have called in a REFIT action for the PSC Charter criteria to be
made mandatory, is that a soft-law approach fares worse than a hard law one.
The monitoring of compliance with quality criteria is challenging and costly and can usually
only be done with external contractors and a mystery shopping approach. The new EURES
Regulation has adopted well-developed and binding quality criteria and will monitor
compliance through the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data at national
level, including through customer satisfaction surveys. A detailed EURES Performance
Measurement System will be foreseen in an implementing act. With a well-defined quality
monitoring system in place, and a governance structure with Member States where quality
issues can be discussed and dealt with, it is probably safe to argue that a well-defined and
legally binding quality system will make the biggest headway.
Technical solutions designed 10 years ago no longer reflect technical progress and best
practice of today
When the Services Directive was adopted in 2006, it foresaw (in Art. 8 (1)) that all procedures
within the scope of the Services Directive "may be easily completed, at a distance and by
electronic means" via the Points of Single Contact. Ten years ago when Member States drew
up this provision, it was considered revolutionary, as most were just launching their e-
government programmes and many procedures were still being carried out offline. Nowadays,
this provision has become almost outdated. It does not foresee "full onlineness" in the sense
of enabling the user to carry out the entire procedure within the website environment, and
without using email, fax or similar. The example of Estonia and many other "forerunner"
Member States shows that EU citizens and businesses can be enabled to complete most of
their interactions with the administration fully online. This trend is supported by very
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ambitious national e-government programmes, EU funding possibilities for e-government via
the social and regional funds, the Connecting Europe Facility and the ISA Programme, and
technical evolutions in the commercial sector with which the public sector is expected to keep
pace.
When Regulation (EC) 764/2008 was adopted in 2008 and set up the Product Contact Points
(and three years later Regulation (EC) 305/2011 creating the Construction Product Contact
Points, which was modelled on 764/2008), it obliged Member States to provide information
on technical rules applicable to a specific type of product, information whether that type of
product is subject to a requirement for prior authorisation, together with information
concerning the principle of mutual recognition, contact details of competent authorities and
remedies. Nowadays, it would appear evident that these information requirements would need
to be fulfilled via a website. But as this was not foreseen and only recommended, more than a
third of Member States are not even publishing the contact details online, and a minority of
Member States have not even created webpages.
The result is that "first generation" technical implementation solutions in legislation – be it for
procedures or information – have not kept pace with the evolution in technology and users'
expectations (based on what they experience in the commercial world). They have led to sub-
optimal solutions in the case of some Member States that did not adopt state-of-the-art
solutions exceeding what had been enshrined in law. The "digital divide" across Member
States is large
328
. With hindsight, our legal instruments have not been ambitious enough
compared with what can and should be required today.
And the Commission learnt from the Services Directive that it should have put more emphasis
on helping Member States with the implementation of e-government. This not only refers to
EU funding – which is available and many Member States have used it for financing e-
government programmes – but also the necessary technical enablers (developed in the form of
large scale pilots over the past few years). Many implementation problems could have been
avoided if the e-IDAS Regulation had already been in place 10 years earlier.
National administrations' neglect of the non-national user
Most Member States do not have users from other Member States "on their radar" when
designing e-government solutions. These are not their "natural clients". 50% of the public
authorities replying to the public consultation for the single digital gateway said that they do
not take into consideration the specific needs of users from other EU countries
329
when
putting procedures online or planning to do so. And as the foreign user has got "no voice" and
is not part of any constituency to which public administrations listen, his specific needs in
terms of access to information, assistance services and procedures are not catered for
330
. Cost
328
329
330
eGovernment Benchmark 2016, "A turning point for eGovernment development in Europe", Capgemini,
IDC, Sogeti, Politecnico de Milano, 2016, p. 6: "A string of countries from the South-West to the North-
East of Europe perform above the European average and are also showing stronger progress than the
European average, while most of the other European countries are behind the European average on both
indicators."
In the question, reference was made to language covers, technical aspects such as e-identification and
payment, or legal aspects such as whether foreign documents need to be certified.
Idem, p. 10: "25% of the services required of foreign entrepreneurs to start their business in another country
is completely offline: meaning there is no information – let alone a service – available online. In contrast,
entrepreneurs starting a business in their own country face such issues in only 2% of the cases. Foreign
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considerations also come into play, as translations have a cost and the benefit of this cost for
the administration is not obvious.
What are the foreign user's "special needs"?
In a nutshell, his needs are for online information, assistance services and procedures to be
made available in English; online procedures without stumbling blocks (such as: national
authentication and payment means only, form fields only accepting national data); and help
with submitting evidence (documents or data) as part of the procedure, i.e. online and without
the need for certification and translation. According to an IMI all user survey in 2015, when
dealing with foreign documents, 43% of administrations require often (or very often) original
documents and 45% require often (or very often) certified translations (45%). The finding of
all Commission e-government benchmark reports and relevant Commission studies on the
performance of the Points of Single Contact is that the foreign user's accessibility to
information, assistance and procedures is much more limited than for the national one. At the
same time, his need for smooth online solutions is even greater than for the national user, as
he cannot easily visit an administration to drop off evidence or to find out about requirements.
For the services under review, the problem of "lack of accessibility for foreign users" does not
pose itself across the board. The services that are fully (Your Europe, Your Europe Advice) or
partly (Enterprise Europe Network, EURES, European Consumer Centres' Network) funded
by the Commission all ensure cross-border services and mainly cater to the foreign user.
SOLVIT, which is a national service with a cross-border reach, has this as its mission as well.
The problem lies with the 100% national services, i.e. the services and goods contact points
(and also national websites which are within Your Europe's remit), which primarily have a
national clientele.
Successful national e-government strategies have further widened the gap between national
and foreign users. They have allowed national citizens and companies to benefit from full
online interaction with the administration, and good websites in the national language, while
foreign citizens and companies still need to follow off-line paper-based procedures and find
ways to overcome the language barrier. This has created new Single Market obstacles for EU
citizens and businesses from other Member States. These problems largely go unnoticed as
foreigners have got no lobby that could complain on their behalf. They usually just pay
expensive private services to sort everything out for them. And as pointed out before, the
evidence from YEA, SOLVIT, ECC and EEN cases has not been used effectively by the
Commission as valuable insights for policy-making.
3.4.6
Conclusion
The evaluation has pointed to a number of problems that concern the individual services, as
well as a lack of effectiveness, efficiency and coherence that concerns them as a package of
Single Market services for citizens and businesses.
start-ups are also less able to find/access information on services (33% vs. 39%) and using services across
borders is only possible in 27% of cases (compared to 46% of services in the national context). Most
common barriers are language, lack of information on the foreign website, and the need for a physical
encounter to perform the service successfully."
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Effectiveness of existing services
As far as the effectiveness of individual services is concerned, recurring and cross-cutting
problems pointed out are: lack of visibility and findability online, lack of quality and under-
use. 92% of consumers and businesses are unaware of any online services at European level
that they could turn to in case of problems.
331
In addition, gaps exist with regard to national-
level information, which is either not online or only in national language, and procedures can
often not be carried out online by foreign users – even where this is possible for domestic
users. The existing legal framework also contains a number of gaps
332
. Cross-border
accessibility remains one of the key development points in order for contact points and other
portals to fully support the Single Market.
Nevertheless, the level of quality, user-centricity and accessibility for foreign users is quite
divergent for the different services.
For services funded by the EU, quality criteria have been included in contracts (Enterprise
Europe Network, Your Europe Advice). These services are contractually obliged to cater for
foreign users.
For services created through binding EU law, quality criteria have proven to be too general
(Points of Single Contact) or hardly exist (Products Contact Points). Additional voluntary
quality criteria (Charter for PSCs) have had limited success.
333
Access for foreign users is still
limited.
For services created through non-binding EU law and managed by the Commission (SOLVIT,
Your Europe
334
) quality criteria have been agreed, but due to their voluntary nature some
Member States are fully onboard, others are not. Access for foreign citizens is guaranteed for
these services.
Efficiency of existing services
The efficiency part of the evaluation produces a mixed picture. The EU-level assistance
services are considered cost efficient when taking into account the savings and other benefits
these services provide to businesses and citizens as compared to much more costly private
alternative services. However, the national-level assistance services (PSCs, PCPs and PCPCs)
can only be considered as partially efficient. The cost effectiveness aspect is difficult to
assess, as data are missing, but they are under-performing for businesses as far as their
effectiveness is concerned. Moreover, the low quality of their websites represents a missed
opportunity to reduce the number of requests through better online up-front information, and
thus to be even more cost-efficient
335
.
There is scope for more efficiency and easier "findability" online if the individual services
promoted their services under a common brand name. The EU could create added value here,
as one recognizable brand, backed up by a common brand search engine, could only be set up
at the EU level.
331
332
333
334
335
A European Single Point of Contact, European Parliament, 2015.
With regard to information for citizens, and for businesses the fields not covered by the Services Directive
and the PCPs only covering the non-harmonised sector.
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/services/docs/services-dir/psc-charter_en.pdf.
For the content that Your Europe aims at, see Annex 13.
On the premise that personalised assistance is always more expensive than online information.
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Coherence of existing services
The lack of coherence refers to the fact that all the instruments that were evaluated were
created by EU level action, but do not operate as a whole: they are dispersed, incomplete, not
sufficiently linked up and not sufficiently user-friendly. A common approach to ensuring
quality through minimum quality standards is missing. There is no overall EU-Member States
governance structure that would assess and ensure consistency of all the instruments. Whilst
the legal framework promotes synergies, these have not been sufficiently exploited by the
Member States (in the absence of binding obligations). In particular, contact points for goods
and services are distinct for most Member States, whilst businesses tend to demand them as a
package. On the European level, the problem lies primarily with duplicating content on
Commission websites. A successful sign-posting policy is, however, in place.
Reasons for the under-performance of existing services
The underlying reasons for the under-performance (for the user) of the existing services are:
- Silo based, administration-centred approaches, leading to fragmentation
In the absence of a coordinated, holistic approach from the perspective of the user,
national and EU administrations have acted as "silos", dealing with related but different
topics on a multitude of single topic portals that are not inter-linked, and only covering
the policy areas within their mandates. This has led to complexity, lack of coherence and
restricted online findability.
- Administration-centred design
EU and national administrations designing services from their perspective, not that of the
user. Both at EU and national level, administration-centred service design has
traditionally produced public services that accommodated more the needs of the
administration than that of the user in terms of clear and easy-to-understand online
explanations. It is easier for the administration to 'launch and leave' a new webportal than
to organise for regular and systematic updates of its content. The regular e-government
benchmark reports of the Commission all point to this problem of quality content taking
second place to making content available online.
- Technical solutions designed 10 years ago no longer reflect technical progress and best
practice of today
Existing first generation services could not benefit from well developed digital solutions
or national e-government architectures, as these were just being developed. Certain
technical solutions foreseen in legal instruments of 10 years ago have been overtaken by
technical progress, and not all Member States have been willing to make the necessary
adaptations (and investments) to keep their technical systems up-to-date.
- National administrations' neglect of the non-national user.
National administrations concentrate on national digital solutions; accessibility for
foreign users is at best an afterthought. Foreign users have got no "voice" in decision-
making, and their needs in terms of language coverage and access to procedures are
generally not taken into account. This manifests itself in various ways, such as form
fields of procedures only accepting national data, foreign evidence (e.g. documents) not
being accepted as part of the online procedure, payment possibilities only being
accessible to nationals, foreign e-IDs not being accepted and procedures only in the
national language(s).
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APPENDIX 1: Existing framework and studies and evaluations used
Instrument
Points of single
contact (EUGO)
Currently applicable rules
Art. 6-8 and 21 of Directive 2006/123/EC
Studies/evaluations
- "The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter" Capgemini
and Eurochambres study, June 2015
- Evaluation for the Services Card as part of the impact assessment, 2016
- REFIT Platform Opinion on the submission by the Danish Business Forum and Businesseurope on the
Point of Single Contact, June 2016
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
Product contact
points
Art. 9 and 10 of Regulation (EC) 764/2008
- Yearly reports on the application of Regulation (EC) No 764/2008 (internal documents of GROW in a
form of note to file)
- draft Commission evaluation on mutual recognition
- CSW Part 1 Evaluation of the Internal Market Legislation for Industrial Products Accompanying the
document the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the
European Economic and Social Committee.
- "Evaluation of the Application of the mutual recognition principle in the field of
goods"(ENTR/172/PP/2012/FC-Lot 4), 2015
- Communication from the Commission to the EP and the Council "First Report on the application of
Regulation (EC) No 764/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 laying
down procedures relating to the application of certain national technical rules to products lawfully
marketed in another Member State and repealing Decision No 3052/95/EC", COM(2012) 292final.
- Results from public consultation on the mutual recognition regulation, 2016
- "Screening Report on Member States Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for
Construction", Ecorys, 2017
Construction
product contact
points
Art. 10 of Regulation (EC) 305/2011
- "Analysis of implementation of the Construction Products Regulation", Report by RPA of 31July 2015
for GROW and Annexes.
- "Screening Report on Member States Product Contact Points and Product Contact Points for
Construction", Ecorys, 2017
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Instrument
SOLVIT
Currently applicable rules
Recommendation 2013/461/EU
Studies/evaluations
- Evaluation of SOLVIT, cses, 2011
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
- Ongoing Commission evaluation that will accompany the initiative 'action Plan to reinforce SOLVIT'
Your Europe
Part of Decision 2004/387/EC on the IDABC
Programme
Your Europe Action Plan COM(2013) 636 final
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
- Study on information and assistance needs of businesses operating cross-border within the EU,
including gap and cost analysis, Draft Final Report, January 2017
- Evaluation of the Your Europe Advice Service, ICF GHK, 2014
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
- Final evaluation of the impact of the Enterprise Europe Network, 2008-2014, Technopolis, 2015
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
Your Europe
Advice
Your Europe Action Plan COM(2013) 636 final
Enterprise
Regulation (EU) 1287/2013 establishing the COSME
Europe Network Programme, as well as yearly Commission
implementing decision on the adoption of the work
programme and the financing decision
EURES
Regulation (EU) 2016/589 of the European Parliament
- Impact assessment accompanying the EURES Regulation, 2014, SWD(2014) 9 final of 17/1/2014
and of the Council of 13 April 2016 on a European
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
network of employment services (EURES), workers'
access to mobility services and the further integration of
labour markets, and amending Regulations (EU) No
492/2011 and (EU) No 1296/2013
European
Consumer
Centres
Network
- Evaluation of the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net), CPEC, 2011
- Single Market Scoreboard data, 2016
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Further studies and evidence used:
-
J. Montesgudo, A. Rutkowski, D. Lorenzani, "Part 2: Assessing the economic impact of setting up Points of Single Contact: an approximation
based on the Doing Business" in "The economic impact of the Services Directive: a first assessment following implementation", Economic
Papers No 456, June 2012
"Services Directive implementation survey – the Chambers' perspective on the Points of Single Contact, Eurochambres, Policy Survey, 7
th
edition, January 2011
"Are the Points of Single Contact truly making things easier for European companies? – Services Directive implementation Report, Business
Europe, November 2011
Court of Auditors Special Report No 5/2016 "Has the Commission ensured effective implementation of the Services Directive?"
European Parliament, Report on Non-Tariff Barriers in the Single Market, 2016
Better Governance for the Single Market', European Commission Communication COM (2012) 259 final.
December 2015-January 2016 panel survey on the European Internal Market conducted by the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions “Upgrading the Single Market: more opportunities for people and business”, Brussels, 28.10.2015 COM (2015) 550
final.
'Smart Single Market Regulation' (IP/A/IMCO/2015-02 PE 563.442), London Economics for the European Parliament, Directorate General for
Internal Policies, Policy Department A, Economic and Scientific Policy at the request of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee
Resolution 'Towards improved single market regulation',P8_TA(2016)0105, (2015/2089(INI)), European Parliament, April 2016.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Stakeholder positions used:
Eurochambres survey "EU Internal Market Barriers and Solutions: The Business Perspective", 23 September 2015
EuroCommerce Position Paper on the single digital gateway, "Giving businesses (especially SMEs) better access to information", 6/12/2016
EuroCommerce Position Paper, Contribution to the forthcoming Commision Single Market strategy 2015, 3/7/2015
Business Europe position paper "Building a true single market for Europe – business priorities", 28 September 2015
Danish Business forum, proposal submitted to the REFIT Platform, July 2015
Business Europe Strategy Paper "Remaining obstacles to a true single market for services" of December 2014
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APPENDIX 2: Intervention Logic
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APPENDIX 3: Information on implementation of the instruments
ESTABLISHMENT
Points of Single Contact
Created between 2006-2009, may have two forms:
online and off-line (physical points of contact). They
are managed by public authorities, sometimes in co-
operation with Chambers of Commerce. Sometimes
online PSCs are part of the e-government portals (and
part of e-government strategies).
USAGE
The recent survey on the PSC (June – August 2016) shows that almost all PSCs use web
analytics programmes to collect information about the PSC users. Majority of PSCs (18)
regularly process and evaluate the collected information. 19 PSCs provided the number of
visitors (returning and unique) in 2015. EE PSC with 5.468,908 visitors is by far the most
often visited PSC, followed by FR (over 4.000.000), SE (over 3.500.000), IT (over
2.000.000), PL and LUX (over 1.000.000).
18 PSCs are monitoring the requests for information or assistance. As the numbers vary
enormously, different methods of monitoring/counting have been introduced: data for
2015: 71.000 (IT), 20.000 per month (PL), 32.000 (NO), 20.000 (SE) and 5.680 (FR) or
554 (NL). The majority of these PSCs can distinguish between nationals and foreigners
and the method of contact (by phone or e-mail).
The performance is (usually) monitored through the Single Market Scoreboard.
Product Contact Points
In operation since 2009, part of national authorities.
The list of e-mail addresses is published on a
Commission website.
MS are obliged to send yearly reports to the Commission summarising the activities of the
PCPs. Out of the 22 annual reports received in 2015, 16 only indicate the number of
inquiries received. The other Member States mentioned the activity of PCPs, without
indicating the number of questions they received.
Few MSs conduct national surveys on the usefulness of the PCPs.
The performance of PCPs is not regularly monitored and they are not part of the Single
Market Scoreboard.
Product
Contact
Construction
Points
for
In operation since July 2013, part of national
authorities.
The list of contact details (telephones, e-mail
addresses) is published on a Commission website.
MS are obliged to send yearly reports to the Commission summarising the activities of the
PCPCs.
The performance of PCPs is not regularly monitored and they are not part of the Single
Market Scoreboard. A study commissioned by the Commission shows that in 2015 the
number of requests put to PCPC was very low – between 15 and 114 per replying MS.
Nothing is known about the quality of the replies provided.
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ESTABLISHMENT
SOLVIT
Launched in 2002 as an informal network of SOLVIT
centres being part of the national administration.
Operates using an online procedure since 2013.
USAGE
The online system (part of the Commission IT infrastructure) allows for:
registration of the complaints,
registration of answers and the response time
monitoring of the quality of answers provided.
Over 2000 complaints (eligible cases) are introduced to SOLVIT every year. They are
answered within 70 days (average). In 2015 SOLVIT helped more than 4 700 people by
resolving their problem, clarifying the issue(s) or signposting them towards another
service.
Performance is monitored through the Single Market Scoreboard.
Your Europe
The YE portal was launched in 2005. It is part of the
inter-institutional “Europe” website, and a joint
project between the COM and Member States
(including EEA). It contains information needed for
citizens and business in 23 languages.
The portal is regularly monitored and efforts are made to constantly increase its findability
(search engine optimisation).
Use of the site is growing fast – over one million monthly visits in 2015 (800 000 in 2014)
Continued high level of satisfaction – more than 90% 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' in online
user surveys.
Performance is monitored through the Single Market Scoreboard.
Your Europe Advice
In operation since 1996 - EU-run advisory service
answering citizens' and enterprises' queries (by phone
or online) about their EU rights in the Single Market.
It relies on a network of more than 60 legal experts
based in all Member States (including EEA) who
handle enquiries in all 24 official EU languages.
Between 2009 and 2015 the number of enquiries more than doubled reaching 25.569 in
2015.
Service efficiency is measured primarily by the speed of replies. The aim is to reply to
enquiries within 3 working days. Over 95% of replies are sent within that deadline and
over 99% within four working days.
Performance is monitored through the Single Market Scoreboard.
Enterprise Europe Network
Launched in February 2008 and co-financed under
COSME programme. Network of 600 member
organisations (including chambers of commerce and
industry, technology centres, universities and
development agencies).
EEN helps SMEs innovate and grow internationally. Its performance is monitored through
“Key Performance Indicators” and verified against “Achievement Guidelines on Advisory
Services Outcomes”.
Not part of the Single Market Scoreboard.
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ESTABLISHMENT
EURES
Established in 1993 as a network of employment
services (through the National Coordination Offices)
in EU/EEA countries, now operating under
Regulation (EU) 2016/589 which constitutes its legal
basis.
Set up in 2005 by a decision of the European
Commission and national governments. It comprises
30 centres covering the EU/EEA. They are hosted by
either the national consumer protection authority or a
consumer association.
USAGE
The EURES network provides job mobility information (through 960 advisers)
recruitment/placement services in a form of a portal where jobseekers and employers can
create their personal accounts. The performance of EURES is monitored yearly in the
Single Market Scoreboard.
European Consumer Centres Network
In 2015, the network had over 93 964 contacts from consumers and received over 38 048
complaints. In 2015, the ECC was able to help over half the complainants.
• 51% of complex cases (where more than one centre had to be involved) were resolved
amicably
• 16.35% of the closed complex complaints were transferred to other organisations (of
which 26% were alternative dispute resolution entities; 11.1% to enforcement bodies and
27.8% to courts).
The achievements of the ECC are presented yearly in the Single Market Scoreboard.
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Annexes to the impact assessment on the single digital gateway
ANNEX 4:
G
AP ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL ONLINE INFORMATION AND PROCEDURES
Methodology for the gap analysis
4.1
Information
The information coverage represents the degree to which a random user can find information
on the topics to be covered by the single digital gateway, in each Member State.
EC desk research, 2016/2017 - mystery shopping
In order to estimate this information coverage, a team of "assessors" looked for answers to a
number of questions selected across 8 areas.
Each assessor was attributed with one or several Member States, and had to look for answers
to the following questions:
Area 1. Starting, running and closing a business
o
Question 1: how can I open a business in this MS ? (level of detail required: list of
the different steps to follow, and explanation of under which authority each falls)
o
Question 2: what different legal types of companies can I choose from?
o
Question 3: how do I close my business?
Area 2. Hiring staff
o
Question 1: what are the labour law rules (e.g. nb of working hours per week, min
wage)
o
Question 2: what is the average wage cost, gross and net wage in this MS?
o
Question 3: Are there any incentives to hire disadvanted groups (elder workers,
young people, or persons with disabilities)
Area 3. Paying taxes
o
Question 1: How can I estimate the company taxes I will pay (what is the tax rate
and the base)?
o
Question 2: Am I entitled to tax benefits?
o
Question 3: Whom do I owe taxes at the federal, regional and local levels?
Area 4. Selling goods
o
Question 1: Is there an overview on the rules my products have to comply with?
o
Question 2: Are there regulations that define requirements for selling dolls online?
o
Question 3: Is there a summary of the regulations that applies to paper cups?
Area 5. Providing services
o
Question 1: what national rules do I have to comply with to provide freight
transport services?
o
Question 2: how do I get my professional qualifications as a hairdresser
recognised?
o
Question 3: what licences do I need to apply for in order to open a restaurant?
Area 6. Getting funds
o
Question 1: What are the public funding programmes available for my business at
the national level?
o
Question 2: as an SME, to which funds do I get access?
o
Question 3: what innovation funds are available in this MS?
Area 7. Complying with environmental rules (certification and labels)
o
Question 1: how can I get an EMAS certification?
o
Question 2: if I want to operate a factory, what rules do I have to comply with in
terms of waste management?
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o
Question 3: what are the main administrative requirements for setting up a
contingency plan for environmental risks management?
Area 8. Complying with health and safety conditions
o
Question 1: Is there an overview of what I need to do to respect legislation on
health and safety at work ?
o
Question 2: what trainings do I have to give my employees concerning health and
safety?
o
Question 3: what are the specific safety requirements in the construction sector?
This process was repeated for information in the national language and in English. For a
limited number of Member States, for which no native speaker was available, assessment was
based on the information that could be found in English as well as through research using
machine translation.
Drawing conclusions
The total number of questions to which an answer could be found on public authorities'
websites was then calculated for each Member State. Finally, a percentage was calculated by
dividing the total number of questions that could be answered by 24.
4.2
Procedures
As regards procedures, the objective was to assess the degree to which a selected list of
procedures were online in each Member State. Five degrees of "onlineness" were defined:
-
Information online and procedures fully online :
1/ Information is available online
2/ The whole procedure can be carried out online, on the website of the responsible
public organisation, without the need for the user to provide anything offline
-
Information online and procedures partly online :
1/ Information is available online
2/ Forms to be filled in for the procedure are available online, but the user needs to
provide part of or all documents offline or per email
-
Information online and procedures offline:
1/ Information is available online
2/ The procedure is not online at all
-
-
Nothing online: nothing can be found online, neither information nor access to an online
procedure
This procedure is not managed at the national level, but is decentralised. Therefore no
assessment of the degree of onlineness was done.
EC desk research, 2016/2017 - mystery shopping
A team of "assessors" looked for the online availability of a list of 20 procedures in each
Member State, and rated each procedure according along the degrees of onlineness described
above.
The procedures that were assessed are the following:
For businesses:
Registration of business activity
VAT registration
For citizens:
Registering a change of address
Requesting or renewing ID card or passport
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VAT returns
Corporate/business tax declaration
Recognition of professional qualification
Registration for income tax
Registration with national insurance scheme as employer
Notification of cessation of activity subject to VAT
Payment of social contributions for employees and payroll
withholding tax
Registration of employees with pension schemes
Request a birth certificate
Request recognition of diploma from a foreign
EU national
Apply for a study grant
Enrol in university
Declaring income taxes
Register for social security benefits
Register a car
Register for a pension
This assessment was done both for domestic and cross-border users.
In a number of cases, in order to access the procedure itself, Member States authorities'
websites require identification. In those cases, it was not possible to go through the procedure
itself and the assessment was based on the information available on the authorities' websites
before accessing the procedure.
For a limited number for Member States, for which no native speaker was available,
assessment was based on the information that could be found in English as well as through
research using machine translation.
Cross-checking with other sources of information
Two other sources of information were then used to double check the findings of the first
exercise:
a study on administrative formalities of important procedures & administrative burden for
business, 2016/2017. This study provided a table assessing, for 8 of the 10 business
procedures, the degree to which the procedure was online in each Member State.
the public consultation on the single digital gateway, 2016 – self-assessment by national
public authorities: 16 Member States provided a self-assessment of the degree of
onlineness of their procedures.
When the comparison of the 3 sources of information showed differences, it was considered
that the self-assessment from the public consultation was the most reliable information,
followed by the study on administrative formalities, and then the mystery shopping.
Drawing conclusions
This exercise enabled to produce 2 tables:
a table showing, for domestic users, the degree of onlineness per procedure and per
Member State,
a table showing, for users from other Member States, the degree of onlineness per
procedure and per Member State.
On this basis, 4 indicators were calculated:
the number of procedures fully online for domestic users (out of 20),
the number of procedures partly online for domestic users (out of 20),
the number of procedures fully online for users from other Member States (out of 20),
the number of procedures partly online for users from other Member States (out of 20).
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4.3
Results of the gap analysis
Table 4.1: Overview gap analysis for information and procedures
Information coverage
Procedures fully
in national
Information coverage
online for domestic
language(s) (% out of
in English
users (% out of 20)
24)
100%
96%
55%
100%
83%
40%
96%
29%
60%
96%
96%
80%
88%
88%
89%
88%
75%
88%
88%
71%
75%
88%
79%
53%
83%
58%
100%
83%
83%
65%
79%
63%
87%
79%
79%
75%
79%
58%
42%
71%
42%
63%
71%
17%
33%
67%
54%
55%
63%
58%
47%
63%
63%
45%
63%
63%
15%
58%
38%
70%
54%
54%
40%
54%
50%
25%
54%
21%
25%
50%
42%
55%
50%
33%
15%
46%
21%
70%
42%
42%
25%
38%
46%
45%
Average EU = 71 %
Average EU = 57%
Average EU = 55%
160
Member State
Estonia
Luxembourg
France
Finland
UK
Denmark
Belgium
Spain
Sweden
Netherlands
Poland
Malta
Slovakia
Portugal
Austria
Latvia
Germany
Ireland
Greece
Lithuania
Slovenia
Croatia
Romania
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Italy
Cyprus
Hungary
EU
Procedures partly
online for domestic
users (% out of 20)
25%
40%
25%
5%
0%
12%
20%
32%
0%
25%
0%
10%
37%
11%
47%
40%
33%
30%
30%
25%
5%
60%
40%
10%
80%
10%
30%
50%
Average EU = 26%
Procedures fully
Procedures partly
accessible online for accessible online for
foreign users (% out foreign users (% out
of 20)
of 20)
45%
35%
35%
45%
55%
25%
60%
15%
79%
11%
56%
13%
60%
15%
53%
26%
67%
28%
65%
15%
73%
7%
75%
10%
26%
32%
63%
5%
0%
27%
45%
20%
33%
13%
35%
30%
5%
20%
20%
25%
30%
5%
20%
55%
20%
25%
20%
20%
5%
25%
6%
33%
25%
25%
20%
45%
Average EU = 39%
Average EU = 23%
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Annexes 1 to 10
Table 4.2: Degree to which national procedures can be handled online by a domestic user (key on page 22)
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Table 4.3: Degree to which national procedures can be handled online by a user from another Member State (key on next page)
Degree to which national procedures can be handled online by a user from another Member State
Member States
Registration of business activity
VAT registration
VAT returns
Corporate/business tax declaration
Businesses
AT
BE
BG
HR
CY
CZ
DK
EE
FI
FR
DE
EL
HU
IE
IT
LV
LT
LU
MT
NL
PL
PT
RO
SK
SI
ES
SE
UK
Recognition of professional qualification
Registration for income tax
Registration with national social insurance scheme upon establishment
Notification of cessation of activity subject to VAT
Payment of social contributions and payroll withholding tax for
employees
Registration of employees with pension and insurance scheme
Registering a change of address
Requesting/renewing ID card or passport
Request a birth certificate
Request recognition of diploma
tdc
tdc
tdc
Citizens
Apply for a study grant
Enrol in university
Declaration of income taxes
Register for social security benefits
Register a car previously registered in another EU country
Register for a pension
tbc
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4.4
Information provided per area
Table 4.4
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Table 4.5: Cost of covering missing information per Member State
Cost for each MS
Information
to put online
Information
coverage in
missing
Member State
coverage in
national
information
English
language(s)
(100% = 267 man-
days)
Estonia
100%
0
96%
Luxembourg
100%
0
83%
Finland
96%
11
96%
France
96%
11
29%
UK
88%
33
88%
Spain
88%
33
79%
Denmark
88%
33
75%
Belgium
88%
33
71%
Netherlands
83%
45
83%
Sweden
83%
45
58%
Malta
79%
56
79%
Poland
79%
56
63%
Slovakia
79%
56
58%
Portugal
71%
78
42%
Austria
71%
78
17%
Latvia
67%
89
54%
Ireland
63%
100
63%
Greece
63%
100
63%
Germany
63%
100
58%
Lithuania
58%
111
38%
Slovenia
54%
122
54%
Croatia
54%
122
50%
Romania
54%
122
21%
Bulgaria
50%
134
42%
Czech Republic
50%
134
33%
Italy
46%
145
21%
Cyprus
42%
156
42%
Hungary
38%
167
46%
Average EU =
EU
Average EU = 71 %
Average EU = 56%
77.46 man-days
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Table 4.6: Cost of covering missing procedures (out of 20) per Member State
Member State
Sweden
UK
Finland
Belgium
Denmark
Malta
Lithuania
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
France
Portugal
Estonia
Latvia
Bulgaria
Spain
Ireland
Hungary
Luxembourg
Slovakia
Slovenia
Germany
Austria
Croatia
Romania
Cyprus
Greece
Czech Republic
Absolute number of
procedures not fully
online
2
3
4
5
5
5
6
6
7
7
8
8
9
9
9
10
11
11
12
12
12
13
15
15
15
15
17
17
Estimated cost
€ 1.2 m
€ 1.8 m
€ 2.4 m
€ 3.0 m
€ 3.0 m
€ 3.0 m
€ 3.6 m
€ 3.6 m
€ 4.2 m
€ 4.2 m
€ 4.8 m
€ 4.8 m
€ 5.4 m
€ 5.4 m
€ 5.4 m
€ 6.0 m
€ 6.6 m
€ 6.6 m
€ 7.2 m
€ 7.2 m
€ 7.2 m
€ 7.8 m
€ 9.0 m
€ 9.0 m
€ 9.0 m
€ 9.0 m
€ 10.2 m
€ 10.2 m
ESIF funding allocated
to e-government and
ICT 2014-2020
336
€ 5 m*
€ 5 m*
€ 244 m
€ 135 m
€ 153 m
€ 66 m*
€ 278 m
€ 204 m
€ 173 m
€ 118 m
€ 542 m*
€ 601 m
€ 352 m*
€ 62 m
€ 191 m
€188 m
€ 50 m*
€ 173 m
€ 330 m
336
The figures are allocations to those thematic objectives of ESIF funds that mention e-government or ICT
development. In the absence of other information, the amounts marked with an asterisk are for e-
government solutions only. Source: Summary of Operational Programmes supporting institutional capacity
building 2014-2020, European Commission, September 2016, and Commission data.
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ANNEX 5:
5.1
D
ETAILED PROBLEM DESCRIPTIONS
Lack of online information
The information about rules and requirements that is necessary for the cross-border provision
of services and sales of goods is often not available online,
337
nor are the rules and
procedures for citizens wanting to work, study, travel or reside in another Member State. The
lack of online information might not be a problem for domestic firms and citizens, but this
creates a substantial hurdle for foreign SMEs.
5.2
Businesses do not find information about rules and requirements that are
necessary for the cross-border provision of services and sale of goods. In particular
for smaller firms the cost and administrative burden can be considerable, and for
micro-companies, self-employed or start-ups they can be prohibitive.
Figure 5.1: Problems experienced when using e-government websites (as percentage of
regular e-government users, 2013)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source: EUROSTAT - Problems experienced when using e-government websites (isoc_ciegi_pb)
337
According to a 2015 Eurobarometer survey on European businesses and public administration, only four in
ten companies are satisfied with the ease of obtaining reliable information from public authorities in their
country, just 3% being ‘very satisfied’. Most companies (55%) are dissatisfied, and almost one in five
(17%) say they are ‘very dissatisfied’. Given the extra difficulties (language, lack of familiarity) for
companies established in other Member States, scores for cross-border situations would no doubt be even
lower.
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Annexes 1 to 10
Figure 5.2: Most sought-after information by businesses
Source: Your Europe for Business, Exit survey, 2016.
Member States' implementation of the Points of Single Contact has been uneven.
338
Some of
them have sophisticated e-government portals that offer extensive information in an
understandable format and in more than the national language(s) across all service sectors.
However, in other cases only general information on business procedures is available online,
without the necessary detail on specific procedures.
According to the Single Market Scoreboard,
339
only in eight countries out of 31 these contact
points are performing well.
340
A study
341
has found that information is frequently missing,
incomplete or not adapted to user needs. There is a big gap between the availability of
information on general requirements such as business registration (71%) and tax formalities
(62%) on one hand; and sector specific information such as licences (49%) and permits
related to operations and location (46%) on the other hand. These findings are in line with
user comments that indicate that the points often provide only general information about
requirements.
342
338
339
340
341
342
The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter, European
Commission 2015.
See
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/scoreboard/performance_by_governance_tool/points_of_single_contact
/index_en.htm
(consulted on 13/06/2016)
The reviewed countries were EU28 plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter, European
Commission 2015.
Further details about the evaluation of the Points of Single Contact in Annex 3.
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Annexes 1 to 10
Figure 5.3: Overall performance of Points of Single Contact
Source: Performance of the Points of Single Contact, Capgemini Consulting, Eurochambres, 2015
The Product Contact Points that were set up to facilitate access to product-specific technical
rules
343
are not well known and many do not even have a website. Further, many do not have
sufficient resources to provide replies timely or in foreign languages.
344
Table 5.1: Key findings on shortcomings of PCPs
Finding
PCPs not having a website
Principle of mutual recognition not explained
No link to EU Mutual Recognition Regulation
No information on relevant national legislation
No technical rules applicable to a specific type of product
Type of product subject to a requirement for prior authorisation not published
No information on implementing authorities
No link to NANDO database
No information on dispute remedies
No published online or postal mail address
No listed phone number
Not available in another language.
Websites having invalid links
Figures
11%
29%
39%
36%
46 %
64%
43%
57%
46%
61%
36%
32%
61%
Source: Draft study "Inventory of Contact Points (PCP, PCPC), Ecorys, 2017 (forthcoming)
343
344
The Product Contact Points were set up following a provision (Art. 9) in the Mutual Recognition
Regulation (764/2008).
For a more detailed overview of the evaluation of the PCPs please see Annex 3. One issue worth
highlighting is the fact that some PCPs forward queries from companies to the responsible authorities
without further involvement and follow-up of the responses given by those authorities. Therefore, there is
in some Member States little information about the outcome of queries (see Evaluation of the Internal
Market Legislation for Industrial Products (2014),
http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/evaluation/search/download.do?documentId=9966151,
p. 62).
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Moreover, in the area of construction products a separate network of Product Contact Points
for Construction was created. These should provide information about technical rules for
construction products. The proliferation of contact points has promoted neither service quality
nor awareness. Only one Member State has streamlined three categories of contact points
(Points of Single Contact, Product Contact Points, Construction Product Contact Points) into a
single website, and another has combined two contact points under one website. In nine
countries the Product Contact Points for Construction do not have a dedicated website.
Table 5.2: Key findings on shortcomings of PCPCs
Finding
Figures
PCPCs not having a website
11%
No online information on products subject to CE marking
43%
No publication of EU Construction Product Regulation
25%
No link to the EU CE marking website
57%
Publication of relevant legislation
50%
No link to the European Committee for Standardization
86%
No link to the European Commission Q&A section
61%
No information about remedies available
75%
No relevant documents contained
36%
No postal mail address online
39%
No phone number provided online
21%
Not available in another language
43%
Source: Draft study "Inventory of Contact Points (PCP, PCPC), Ecorys, 2017 (forthcoming)
In general, there is a relatively low level of awareness amongst companies regarding the
existence or purpose of any of these contact points, which means that they are not used very
often.
345
Overall, the shortcomings in terms of coverage and quality of information provided
are broadly similar to those for products more generally as described above.
346
Information on European justice and access to judicial procedures is provided on the
European e-Justice Portal, which is being made into a one-stop shop for information on
European justice. This will include tools for direct communication between citizens and
courts in other Member States, as well as interconnection of Member States' business or
insolvency registers.
345
346
Analysis of implementation of the Construction Products Regulation, Final Report, 2015. According to a
Commission study/survey of PCPs and PCPCs which is not yet published, requests varied between 12 and
230 per year, with most roughly receiving one request per week. This is based on a limited panel of
respondents (6 PCP and 10 PCPC).
For further details and relevant evaluation results please see Annex 3.
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Table 5.3: Key findings on availability of information
Finding
Companies dissatisfied with the ease of obtaining
reliable information from national public authorities
On PSCs significant shares of information for 4
tested specific business scenarios is missing
Businesses identified inaccessibility of information
on rules and requirements as a major internal market
obstacle
National content on Your Europe missing for several
areas for a sizable share of (EEA) countries
Figures
55%
347
60% for 1/3 of MS; 50%-40% for 1/3 of MS; 30% for
1/3 of MS
348
81%
349
42% (taxation); 39% (vehicles); 16% (travel,
residence formalities and national contact points);
10% ( start & grow)
350
Citizens
who responded to the public consultation have tried finding which rules they should
be following to comply with national requirements when moving to another EU country and
most of them thought it was difficult or somewhat difficult (27% and 59% respectively). In
another context just over one quarter of citizens (26%) say they feel informed about what they
can do when their rights as an EU citizen are not respected.
351
This is why it has been
proposed to encourage Member States to take a more proactive approach with regard to the
provision of information to citizens.
352
Table 5.4: Information needs
What information citizens need
353
Residency documents and registering
Studying
Employment and working conditions
Social security and welfare
Recognition of diplomas
Percentage of respondents
69%
50%
45%
41%
39%
More than one out of three citizens who had lived or were living in another EU country
indicated that they had experienced difficulties in relation to the exercise of their rights as EU
citizens after having moved. Most of these problems were linked to lengthy or unclear
administrative procedures and a majority of them said they could not find enough information
or were not sufficiently aware of their rights as EU citizens.
354
Online information, such as on administrative requirements, is not always available. The
possibility of completing such requirements online would help significantly the move to
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
Flash Eurobarometer 417, European businesses and public administration, 2016.
Study "The Performance of the Points of Single Contact", Capgemini Consulting and Eurochambres, 2015.
Survey by Eurochambres, 2015.
Your Europe portal.
Flash Eurobarometer 430
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2016-flash-eurobarometer-430-citizenship_en.pdf
24 Years of EU Citizenship: Removing the obstacles to full potential, ECAS (European Citizen Action
Service), May 2016.
EU citizenship consultation 2015.
EU citizenship consultation 2015 "EU Citizenship: Share your opinion on our common values, rights and
democratic participation", available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2015_public_consultation_booklet_en.pdf,
pp. 31-32.
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another EU country. EU citizens also asked for information and assistance responding to the
individual needs and questions of newcomers through one-stop-shop web portals provided by
the authorities to help them settle down in an EU country.
355
5.3
Lack of quality
The validity of information, even when it is available online, is difficult to ascertain. Users
have difficulties in finding the right information: content is not always up-to-date, navigation
tools do not always lead to the information needed, and legal and administrative jargon is
used instead of a vocabulary that is adapted to the users.
Member States seem also to prioritise the availability of services online over the quality of
those services
356
. Users have noted that structuring information according to the business life
cycle would help them to find the information needed.
357
As regards citizens, satisfaction with complaint handling is highest amongst those consumers
who complained to Alternative Dispute Resolution bodies, although the use and knowledge of
these bodies are relatively low.
358
Before deciding whether to move to another Member State, approximately three out of four
citizens search for information on administrative websites of the destination country. Almost
half of the respondents (47%) would like to receive effective support and assistance in the
enforcement of their rights through specialised bodies
.
359
The need for reliable information and uniform quality levels across the EU
A Romanian construction company is currently operating in several EU Member States and is looking to
expand its operations to new countries. In particular, it recently found a good market opportunity in Member
State B and it is starting to go through all the required administrative procedures needed for it to be able to
operate on this new market. Among these steps is obtaining a Luxemburgish VAT number. At a meeting with
the European Commission, this company reported paying 3000 EUR to a private law firm to gather the
necessary information on this procedure. Companies value the legal reliability of the information they base
their decisions and business upon. This is why they considered that the information that could be found on the
official websites, to this date and with the current quality standards, was not a good enough source for them.
360
A Dutch company wishing to register economic activity in Member State C spent 7 000 EUR to hire a
consultant who knew the language of the host country, and who could deal with the burden of the procedure.
355
356
357
358
359
360
EU citizenship consultation 2015 "EU Citizenship: Share your opinion on our common values, rights and
democratic participation", available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2015_public_consultation_booklet_en.pdf.
Future-proofing E-government for the Digital Single Market, background report, European Commission
2015.
The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter, European
Commission 2015.
Consumer Conditions Scoreboard (2015).
See Report on 2015 public consultation on EU Citizenship (available at
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/document/files/2015_public_consultation_booklet_en.pdf
), p. 31.
Information received at a bilateral meeting with the European Commission in October 2016.
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Users have frequently criticised information-oriented web sites for the difficulty of finding
relevant information and the fact that relevant information was often located in different parts
of the web site.
361
Table 5.5: Key findings on missing inter-linkages
Finding
Figures
No link to the PCPC of the same country
57%
PCPs not linking to the PSC of the same country
54%
PCPs not providing the contact details of PCPs in other countries
43%
PCPs not providing links to PCPCs in other countries
89%
PCPs not linking to other EU websites
50%
PCPCs not linking to the PCP of the same country
43%
PCPCs not linking to the PSC of the same country
64%
PCPCs not linking to other countries' PCPCs
50%
PCPCs not linking to other EU websites
54%
PCPCs websites containing invalid links
32%
National online services in the area of social security referring to corresponding EU-level
13%
362
services
EU level online services in the area of social security referring to corresponding national
47%
363
services
Source unless indicated: Draft study "Inventory of contact points (PCP, PCPC), Ecorys, 2017 (forthcoming)
5.4
Lack of online procedures
Firms and citizens who want to engage in a cross-border activity often need to fulfil
registration and other relevant administrative procedures. These can be related to starting or
expanding a business, looking for a job or a place of study, or establishing residence. In this
context it is often necessary to provide proof of rights or competencies (a VAT number, a
permit, a residence permit, a confirmation of a car registration), supporting documents,
identity verification and sometimes fee payment.
Despite progress that has been achieved, considerable progress needs to be made to meet
business expectations and the requirements of the Directive, in particular regarding the
number of procedures available online. The availability of information and online procedures
for foreign users is a recurring problem as often only rudimentary information is provided in
English or other foreign languages and that online forms are only available in local
languages.
364
A study
365
on the Points of Single Contacts concluded that the ability to complete government
procedures online is limited and uneven in Member States. The registration of economic
361
362
363
364
365
Study on Analysis of the Needs for Cross-Border Services and Assessment of the Organisational, Legal,
Technical and Semantic Barriers, Final Report, European Commission 2013.
EMPSS study interim report.
Idem.
The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter, European
Commission 2015.
The Performance of the Points of Single Contact. An Assessment against the PSC Charter, European
Commission 2015. The Services Directive sets out a list of obligatory features of the Points of Single
Contact that the Member States need to implement. The PSCs also provide a framework for more advanced
e-government services aimed at creating a more business-friendly environment.
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activity or applying for a tax number score best, since these procedures are fully online in
about half of the countries investigated. There is room for improvement in other areas,
including applying for permits.
Table 5.6: Key findings on lack of procedures fully online
Finding
Administrative procedures are the top obstacle for exporting SMEs
366
Companies identifying complex administrative procedures as the main internal market
obstacle
Services required of foreign entrepreneurs to start their business in another country that are
completely offline (no information, no procedure)
Share of entrepreneurs starting a business in their own country face such issues (row above)
PSCs scoring worst for cross-border accessibility
Share of MS where financial services procedures are online
Share of MS where registrations procedures are online
Share of MS where permits procedures are online
Share of administrations requiring often (or very often) original documents when dealing with
foreign documents
Share of administrations requiring often (or very often) certified translations
Figures
83%
367
25%
368
2%
41%
369
59%
370
54%
35%
43%
371
45%
Another problem is the quality of the procedures available online. Putting parts of a procedure
online is of limited use if its completion needs to happen offline. And even when procedures
can be completed online nationally, they are often not accessible for users from other Member
States.
The legal requirements are another layer, as despite progress made recently, in many cases
citizens and businesses are still required to produce original documents, possibly with
validation, (requiring an office visit), as part of complying with rules. Most often scanned
copies of supporting documents are not accepted.
372
Where entrepreneurs employ third-party professionals to assist in start-up, they often do so for
company incorporation and tax registration. These formalities are the major bottlenecks in the
start-up process, requiring more procedures than other such as business licensing and
inspections. When used, professional services account for most of the cost to start a
business.
373
Almost three out of four citizens (73%) would welcome the availability of e-services enabling
them to fulfil administrative formalities in the country of destination online, such as the
possibility to fill in administrative forms online.
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
Flash Eurobarometer 421.
Survey by Eurochambres, 2015.
E-government benchmark report 2016, insight report.
Study "The Performance of the Points of Single Contact", Capgemini Consulting and Eurochambres, 2015.
E-government benchmark report 2016, insight report.
IMI user survey 2015.
For citizens, 14 often used documents are covered by the Public Documents Regulation that dispenses with
authorisations and translations.
World Bank, Doing Business 2016.
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The number of cases dealt with by Your Europe Advice gives indications about where the
problems lie:
374
Table 5.7: Your Europe Advice cases
Issue
Social security
Entry procedures
Residence
Motor vehicle
Work
Taxes
Cases in 2015
14 000
10 000
9 000
6 000
4 000
3 000
On the measures rated as highly important, making all online public services inclusive and
accessible to all got the highest score (64%) in the EU citizenship consultation, giving users
access to public services online (63%) and making online public services more trustworthy
and secure.
375
When surfing online, beyond your mother tongue, the most helpful language is
English.
376
According to a study,
377
the EU score for the availability and sophistication of procedures,
availability of e-payment tools, and track and trace systems (providing end-users with the
possibility to follow the status of an application online) are on average 60%, but there are
large country variations. Key enabling factors such as electronic identification and electronic
signatures are often not available for cross-border users. The e-government benchmark
reports
378
also point out that the range of services available online to foreign users is much
more limited than for domestic users.
Higher costs are caused by the need to visit an office; to provide certified translations of
supporting documents; and to provide the necessary identification. Cross-border users face
additional costs caused by the demand for more documents than for domestic users;
information that is not available in foreign languages; request for certified translations of
documents or certificates; or face-to-face meetings with officials or other persons that would
not be required for domestic businesses or citizens requesting the same service.
379
Table 5.8: Key findings on information, assistance services and procedures
Finding
PSCs assessed as below the EU average for the
criterion of navigation tools
PSCs assessed as below the EU average for the
Figures
46%
36%
374
375
376
377
378
379
ECAS - Your Europe Advice survey:
http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/csdays2016---workshop-5---claire-damilano---ecas.pdf.
EU citizenship consultation 2015.
See the Exit Survey at
http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/index_en.htm.
It consisted of +/- 1600 results
between December 2015 and January 2016.
Capgemini, IDC, Sogeti and Politecnico di Milano,"Future-proofing eGovernment for the Digital Single
Market – An assessment of digital public service delivery in Europe", Background Report prepared for the
Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, 2015. It found out that e.g.
only 57% of all assessed services are available to cross-border businesses.
European Commission 2014 and 2015.
EU-wide digital once-only principle for citizens and businesses: Policy options and their impacts, SMART
2015/0062, GNK Consult et al. 2016.
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criterion of website structure
Time estimation of procedure provided on PSCs is
hardly ever provided.
45% (procedure of general registration of economic
activity); 15% (for applying for a VAT number); for
other procedures much lower
Respondents considering lengthy or unclear
69%
380
administrative procedures as frequent difficulties
Public websites that are ‘mobile-friendly’
1 in 3
381
Source unless indicated: Study "The Performance of the Points of Single Contact", Capgemini Consulting and
Eurochambres, 2015
5.5
Lack of awareness and findability
Services that are available online are not useful if they cannot be found easily. In many cases,
instead of increasing the scope of an existing service whenever a new need arises, the
administrative tendency is to create new portals or services for each policy area. This leads to
the creation of new networks, new contact points, new IT tools, and new awareness-raising
campaigns. Both at European and at national levels it would be more cost-effective to use an
existing network, portal or contact point and broaden its tasks but there is very little incentive
to avoid proliferation.
Limited awareness of existing rights in healthcare
Lack of awareness about rights and existing assistance services also limits citizen's opportunities
and fruition of rights across the Single Market. As an example, one year after their creation, 90% of
respondents to a Special Eurobarometer on patients' rights in the EU had never heard of the National
Contact Points that provide information about EU cross-border healthcare, and fewer than two out
of ten citizens feel that they are informed about their cross-border healthcare rights.
382
The awareness of both businesses and the general public of the Points of Single Contact
portals is low, possibly related to the fact that none of the PSCs included in the study ran
awareness campaigns when the portals were launched, nor did they create direct links to other
Member State portals. Search engine ranking of the PSCs was poor in over half of the
countries. Language also limits findability, as foreign users should explicitly be catered for
when indexing the website.
The Mutual Recognition Regulation
383
encourages Member States to entrust the role of
Product Contact Points to existing contact points, but most have not followed this
recommendation. Similarly, the Construction Products Regulation encourages setting up
Construction Product Points (PCPCs) by building on an existing Product Contact Point.
However, fewer than half of all Member States followed this recommendation, and of those
only eight can be accessed online. According to a study,
384
few firms are aware of the
existence of the PCPCs, in particular in other EU countries.
380
381
382
383
384
EU Citizenship consultation.
E-government benchmark report 2016, insight report.
Special Eurobarometer 425, Patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare in the European Union, 2015.
Regulation 764/2008.
Analysis on the implementation of the Construction Products Regulation, 2015.
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There are large differences between Member States concerning the awareness of citizens of
national e-government portals.
385
One of the reasons why portals and websites are difficult to
find for firms from other countries is that they are not linked
Table 5.9: Key findings on lack of awareness and online findability
Finding
Share of consumers and businesses are unaware of any online services at European level that
they could turn to in case of problems
Number of existing EU-level online services
Share of targeted citizens unaware
Share of targeted businesses unaware
Share of Dutch entrepreneurs who are doing business in the internal market have never heard
of any EU-level online information and advisory services
respondents to a Special Eurobarometer on patients' rights in the EU had never heard of the
National Contact Points
Respondents considering not finding enough information or not being sufficiently aware of
their rights as EU citizens as frequent difficulties
Share of citizens having never heard of the European Consumer Centres
Share of cross-border shoppers having never heard of the European Consumer Centres
Figures
91.6%
386
44.0%
48.0%
34.0%
80.0%
387
90.0%
388
51.0%
389
85.0%
390
80.0%
5.6
Lack of accessibility for foreign users
The primary areas for improvement identified by users are the provision of information in
English and other foreign languages, the ability to submit forms in languages other than the
home country language and the ability to log into a service area with a foreign eID
.391
Even on some sites where multiple languages are provided for communication forms can only
be completed in the home country language. As most websites can use translation tools, it
would be beneficial if these tools were highlighted on the website. For technical information
more elaborate and formal translation and mapping would be required.
392
Procedure only available in the national languages
Member State A, a German company wishing to handle VAT return, VAT refund and income tax
return had to hire an adviser who knew the language of the host country, and who could deal with the
burden of the procedure (3 hours of a senior adviser).
In the same Member State A, a Finnish company needed to pay 3 000 EUR for a consultant to help
registering its economic activity, because it found the procedure too cumbersome and needed an
adviser knowing the language of the country. In order to register business for VAT, the same company
tried to find information online on the procedure. This was difficult because of the low quality of the
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
For instance the Austrian business service portal 'Unternehmensserviceportal' is known by 23% of Austrian
enterprises according to a 2015 survey. The central UK government gov.uk domain is among the 25 most
visited domains in the UK according to regular surveys.
A European Single Point of Contact, European Parliament, 2015.
Survey, by the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, 2016.
Special Eurobarometer 425, Patients' rights in cross-border healthcare in the EU, 2015.
Report on 2015 Public consultation on EU citizenship.
Evaluation of the European Consumer Centres Network, 2011.
Study on Analysis of the Needs for Cross-Border Services and Assessment of the Organisational, Legal,
Technical and Semantic Barriers, Final Report, European Commission 2013.
Study on Analysis of the Needs for Cross-Border Services and Assessment of the Organisational, Legal,
Technical and Semantic Barriers, Final Report, European Commission 2013.
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information, and language that the company didn’t understand. In order to deal with this problem, the
company used a web translator, but the result was not accurate.
Besides language issues, the technical implementation can create problems. When eID and e-
signature are required, this can discriminate against nationals who do not have eIDs, and the
systems may not recognise foreign eIDs and e-signatures until the eIDAS regulation is in
force.
393
Further, integrated payment tools may not be accessible to foreign users, or are not
foreseen at all, i.e. requiring office visits.
5.7
Lack of overview of single market problems
With the current tools, citizens and businesses have to make an effort to signal a problem or
make a complaint, which reduces the incentives to do so. Motivation is also diminished when
there is no feedback, or when it is delayed. Moreover, it is likely that there is a bias towards
complaints from larger businesses, as these have more resources and legal expertise to launch
a complaint procedure.
Most business respondent respondents (55%) would be willing to give feedback on their
experience with the Single Market, so as to draw the attention of policy-makers to recurrent
problems.
Table 5.10: Key findings on problems of users not being analysed
Finding
Number of real life cases in Your Europe Advice database
Approximate number of cases received annually in SOLVIT
No central analysis of real life cases in the database of the Enterprise Europe Network
Cases
200 000
2 000
8 000
Source: European Commission
5.8
Affected business population
With regard to the number of businesses involved cross-border, Eurostat data on the number
of businesses controlled from other EU Member States is used (Table 5.10). This figure
excludes for example self-employed who move and establish in another EU country, or
businesses offering temporary services in another EU country – for example they may need to
notify the business register of the host country. Thus, the figures used underestimate the
relevant cross-border business population.
393
The full implementation of the eIDAS regulation should address this.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2014.257.01.0073.01.ENG
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Table 5.11: Number of businesses controlled from other EU MS
394
Host MS
AT
BE
BG
CY
CZ
DE
DK
EE
ES
FI
FR
GR
HR
HU
IE
IT
LT
LU
LV
MT
NL
PL
PT
RO
SE
SI
SK
UK
Most recent year
Estimate of new
establishments
2013
7 384
185
2013
872
22
2014
7 820
196
2013
169
7
a)
2014
10 097
73
a)
2014
16 959
424
2014
2 344
59
b)
2014
622
16
2013
8 412
210
2013
1 979
49
2014
16 947
424
2014
1 549
39
2013
3 055
76
2014
12,768
319
2012
1 962
49
2014
7 663
192
2014
2 643
66
2014
5 937
148
2014
4 415
110
2014
105
3
2014
6 915
173
2013
5 452
136
2014
4 408
110
2014
21 028
526
2013
7 279
182
2014
3 171
79
2014
3 069
69
a)
2013
8 701
218
Source: Eurostat,
Notes: a) Amadeus database, b) www.virk.dk, other: 2.5% of total cross-border businesses
Total businesses
With regard to the number of businesses involved cross-border, Eurostat data on the number
of businesses controlled from other EU Member States is used (Table 5.11). This figure
excludes for example self-employed who move and establish in another EU country, or
businesses offering temporary services in another EU country – for example they may need to
notify the business register of the host country. Thus, the Eurostat figures that were used,
underestimate the relevant cross-border business population.
394
Study about administrative formalities of important procedures and administrative burden for businesses,
Ecorys for the European Commission, forthcoming, 2017
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Table 5.11: EU Countries from which cross-border businesses are controlled
395
Host MS
AT
BE
BG
CY
CZ
DE
DK
EE
ES
FI
FR
GR
HR
HU
IE
IT
LT
LU
LV
MT
NL
PL
PT
RO
SE
SI
SK
UK
Total businesses
7,384
872
7,820
169
10,097
16,959
2,344
622
8,412
1,979
16,947
1,549
3,055
12,768
1,962
7,663
2,643
5,937
4,415
105
6,915
5,452
4,408
21,028
7,279
3,171
3,069
8,701
Most frequent other EU countries from which the business is
controlled
DE (55%), NL (6%), UK (6%)
FR (22%), NL (21%), DE (17%), LU (11%), UK (10%)
GR (28%), IT (11%), DE (10%)
DE (27%), GR (25), UK (16%), NL (11%)
DE (32%), AT (13%), SK (11%)
NL (21%), UK (15%), AT (12%), LU (11%)
SE (35%), DE (17%), NL (11%), UK (11%)
FI (36%), SE (18%), EE (9%)
DE (22%), FR (19%), NL (14%), UK (11%), IT (10%)
SE (38%), DE (16%), UK (12%)
DE (23%), BE (15%), LU (14%), UK (12%)
CY (42%), DE (10%), NL (9%)
AT (20%), IT (16%), SI (14%), DE (13%)
DE (25%), AT (23%), IT (7%)
UK (54%), DE (12%), FR (8%)
DE (24%), FR (22%), UK (16%)
DE (12%), EE (12%), LV (9%), NL (9%)
BE (35%), FR (31%), DE (23%)
LT (23%), EE (16%), UK (9%)
DE (24%), IT (15%), UK (13%)
DE (30%), UK (19%), BE (16%), FR (11%)
DE (32%), FR (10%), NL (9%)
ES (32%), FR (25%), DE (10%)
IT (26%), DE (13%), CY (10%)
DK (17%), DE (14%), UK (14%), LU (13%), NL (13%)
IT (26%), AT (20%), HR (17%), DE (13%)
CZ (20%), AT (19%), DE (17%)
DE (21%), FR (16%), NL (16%), IE (11%)
395
Study about administrative formalities of important procedures and administrative burden for businesses,
Ecorys for the European Commission, forthcoming, 2017
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ANNEX 6:
6.1
6.1.1
D
ETAILED QUALITY CRITERIA
Possible quality criteria to be included in the legal act
Information
All national and EU level information covered by the single digital gateway should:
-
be comprehensive and cover everything citizens and business need to know to exercise
their rights in the Single Market and to comply with rules and obligations which apply
to his/her situation (e.g. moving to another Member State, opening business in another
EU country);
be accurate and kept up-to-date
include references, links and access to legal acts, more specific, technical information
or assistance service, as appropriate;
include the name of entity responsible for the content of the information;
indicate dates of its publication and its last update,
be written in a comprehensible language adapted to the needs of a target audience,
be provided in at least one other EU language different from the national language.
Procedures
-
-
-
-
-
-
6.1.2
Required preliminary information about procedures:
-
-
-
-
-
-
All the different steps of the procedure, including the competent authorities it
involves;
means of identification that are required (e.g. eID, eSignature);
the type and format of evidence which should be submitted;
any fees, if applicable and how they can be paid;
how long the procedure will last (e.g. on average), what are the deadlines (if any);
in which languages the procedure can be completed.
The deadlines indicated in the description should be respected and in case of a delay, users
should be immediately informed about the cause of such delay and a new deadline should be
indicated to them.
The single digital gateway should ensure that when the online procedure has been established,
it can be accessed on equal conditions by national users as well as users from other Member
States. It is therefore important to ensure that such procedures:
-
-
-
-
-
6.1.3
do not contain form fields which accept data in particular national formats,
accept eID and eSignature issues from other Member States;
accept evidence in electronic format;
contain instructions how to complete the procedure in at least one EU language other
than a national one;
in case the payment of a fee is required, users should be able to pay such fees using a
payment service commonly accessible in cross-border situations.
Assistance and problem solving services
The explanation of the nature of the assistance service should be provided upfront, so that
users have clear understanding of what they can and cannot expect from such service. The
explanation should include:
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-
-
-
-
-
the type, purpose and expected results of the service offered;
the name and contact details of the entity responsible for the service;
fees, if applicable, and how they can be paid;
the deadline for the delivery of the service or an average response time;
languages in which the request can be submitted and further contact carried on.
The deadlines indicated in the description of the service should be respected and in case of a
delay, users should be immediately informed about the cause of such delay and a new
deadline should be indicated to them.
6.2
Background to the EIPA Study
In the context of the work on the Impact Assessment accompanying the Commission Proposal
on the single digital gateway, the Commission requested EIPA to identify quality criteria that
could be used to establish standards for the gateway services, in each of the following three
areas:
-
-
-
Information;
Assistance and problem-solving services; and
Procedures.
These quality criteria might be applied by the Commission, to monitor the quality of the
services accessible through the gateway, by service users to give feedback, or service
providers to improve the service quality and delivery.
The EIPA Study describes existing, available systems for measuring and managing the quality
of public services, including several international and national assessment standards and
awards, and evaluates their potential suitability and transferability for services to be covered
by the gateway.
6.3
Content of the study
The report outlines and analyses the gateway’s operating environment, the development of e-
Government in public service delivery (five stages of e-service development), how public
administrations interact both with citizens and businesses as e-service users, and with each
other (interoperability, once-only principle), and the expectations of users’ interface with
public administrations: preferences for a package of services that corresponds to user’s
individual circumstances (‘life events’ approach).
The study briefly summarises the tools available to understand and improve the quality of
public service delivery, both in content and process (user/satisfaction surveys, user panels,
focus groups, mystery shopping, customer journey mapping (CJM), and comments,
suggestions and complaints schemes), and sets out their pros and cons. It indicates that online
surveys, comments and complaints schemes, CJM and mystery shopping would be the most
pertinent for the gateway.
The report next reviews the three dominant quality management systems (QMSs) recognised
internationally, applied in public and private organisations, namely the ISO 9000 series, the
European Foundation for Quality Management’s Excellence Model and the Common
Assessment Framework. It provides a short description of each standard, setting out the
purpose, nature and methodology of each one, the context in which they are applied, and their
pros and cons. As regards their overall applicability to the single digital gateway, the report
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notes that their transferability to the single digital gateway context is limited by their
organisational focus. The methodology behind each QMS enables institutional self-
improvement which indirectly influences the quality of services provided by the organisation.
Following the review of international models, the report presents the eight Member State
initiatives (plus one EU-funded project in a pre-accession environment) establishing standards
and awards for quality service delivery:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The Estonian Public Sector Quality Award,
The UK’s Beacon Council Scheme,
The UK’s Customer Service Excellence Initiative,
France’s Le Referentiel Marianne,
The Dutch ‘Mark of Good Services’,
The ‘Triple A for Citizens’ project,
Estonia’s e-State Charter,
The UK’s Digital Service Standard.
Lessons have been drawn from these experiences for the single digital gateway: strong
motivation based on competition, leverage (central government bodies or the supreme audit
institution influencing the actions of the target institutions), prestige, funding and
improvement (underlying concept of self-improvement within organisation).
The report then proposes a list of potential criteria, drawn from the international & national
models and other sources as applicable, for the three elements of the single digital gateway
(information, assistance & problem-solving services, and e-procedures), as well as the entire
end-to-end ‘life event’ process).
Finally, the report puts forward some ideas on how the tools, standards and criteria might be
applied to the single digital gateway.
6.4
Potential quality criteria for the single digital gateway
The report identifies the following elements of a quality e-service for users in another
Member State:
-
-
-
-
-
-
Available online through an easily identifiable portal,
Accessible through various electronic channels, on devices and platforms that meet
user’s preferences,
User friendly (the portal uses clear, concise, jargon-free & non-legalistic language),
Easy to navigate: with good signposting from one step to the next, and to other
complementary services on other public and private websites,
Straightforward and quick to use: requiring as few steps as possible, to reduce the
administrative burden and cost,
Available in at least one or two common languages, different than a native language
and possibly in neighbouring country languages.
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The potential criteria could include the following elements:
a) Quality of information:
Criterion
Channel choice
Transparency of
ownership
Life event
presentation
Ease of access
Language
preference
Clarity of
orientation
Information
relevance
Information
presentation
Feedback option
Feedback use
Elaboration
Information is accessible through all the mainstream devices and platforms,
including mobile apps.
The portal includes clear information about the website owner (physical and
electronic addresses), its purpose, objective and the target audience.
Information is structured and presented under ‘life events’, corresponds with
user needs, and is organized flexibly to allow the user to assemble and
customise their own service package.
The information is easy to find on the portal, including for non-native readers
and the visually impaired.
Information is ideally available in all official languages of the EU; otherwise
at least English and the languages of the main countries using the specific
service(s).
The future steps towards the goal are clear to the information seeker, and
particularly what he or she should do next.
The information is practical, accurate, precisely specified, and up-to-date.
Information is set out in simple, non-legalistic and jargon-free language, with
any technical terms explained.
It is possible for service users to send feedback regarding their experience with
the information provision and to provide reviews and ratings (user satisfaction)
that are published on the website.
The feedback from service users is analysed regularly by the portal owner to
improve the quality of information and other aspects of the service.
It is possible for service users to directly get in contact with personalised
assistance services online (using IM or e-mail), there is an up-to-date list of
competent sources of advice for further help online or by phone, including up-
to-date contact details and language options (see section 7.2).
Referral option
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b) Quality of assistance and problem-solving service:
Criterion
Ease of enquiry,
comment or
complaint
Language of query &
response
Transparency of
ownership
Clarity of process
Speed of response
Relevance of
response
Reliability of
response
Clarity of response
Visibility of enquiry,
comment, complaint
and response
Feedback option
Feedback use
Elaboration
It is possible to make an enquiry, comment or complaint through all
appropriate channels (namely e-mail, social media, telephone), including
online by mobile, and the process should be indifferent to the medium, each
one being equally as convenient to use as the others.
It is possible for the query / comment / complaint and the response to be
made ideally in any official language of the EU, in accordance with the
language preference of the enquirer, otherwise at least English and the
languages of the main countries using the specific service(s).
The organisation behind the assistance and problem-solving service is clearly
identified, including its ownership, legal identity and contact details
(physical and electronic addresses) in the event of complaints.
It should be clear to the enquiring citizen or entrepreneur what will happen
with their query and how long it will take to respond.
The response is executed within a reasonable time (which could be set
depending on complexity, from ‘instantly’ onwards).
The response is addressed precisely to the query under consideration.
The response is accurate and legally robust (i.e. not open to challenge).
The response is provided in simple, non-legalistic and jargon-free language,
with any technical terms explained.
The enquiries, comments and complaints are presented on the applicable
website / social media along with the response, with all information
anonymised (if appropriate) and aggregated (if helpful to the service user), to
enhance future service quality.
It is possible for service users to send feedback regarding their experience
with the assistance and problem-solving service and to provide reviews and
ratings (user satisfaction) that are published on the website.
The feedback from service users is analysed regularly by the portal owner to
improve the quality of assistance and problem-solving.
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c) Quality of e-procedures:
Criterion
Online availability
Ease of access
Language
preference
Elaboration
The procedure is fully electronic (via the internet) and can be performed
without the need to visit an office or use telephone or postal services.
The procedure is easy to find on the portal, including for non-native readers.
The procedure can be performed ideally in all official languages of the EU,
otherwise at least English and the languages of the main countries using the
specific service(s).
A procedure might comprise many steps, where each one falls to a different
organisation, which is invisible in the interests of interoperability and a fully
integrated and user-friendly service. The organisation that has the lead
responsibility for the procedure as the service provider is clearly identified,
including its ownership, legal identity and contact details (physical and
electronic addresses) in the event of complaints.
The portal includes information about the personal data processing policy in
accordance with data protection law, the service provider complies with the
policy and the legislation, and service users have the right to know how their
personal data are protected in administrative agencies.
The steps required to navigate through the procedure are easy for the user to
understand and follow.
The procedure is accompanied by clear information that explains the steps to
be taken, the duration of the process, and the stage they have reached in the
process, in clear, concise, precise, user-friendly, jargon-free, non-legalistic
language, which is reliable and up-to-date, with any technical terms explained.
Clear and up-to-date information is provided concerning what the user should
have ready in advance to successfully carry out the next step of the procedure
(e.g. eID, e-documents, payment details, etc.)
If an authentication is needed for a cross-border service, it is possible online
using national eID.
If any kind of documentation is needed to complete the procedure (e.g.
certificate, diploma, proof of registration etc.), it is possible to submit it online.
The procedure can be executed in a reasonable time, including any online
checks that must be performed by the service provider.
It is possible for the service users to follow the status of the procedure online
It is possible for service users to send feedback regarding their experience with
the procedure and to provide reviews and ratings (user satisfaction) that are
published on the website.
The feedback from service users is analysed regularly by the portal owner,
along with the ‘abandon rate’ (the % of site visitors who leave without
completing a transaction) to improve the quality of the procedure and other
aspects of the service.
It is possible for service users to directly get in contact with personalised
assistance services online (using IM or e-mail), there is an up-to-date list of
competent sources of advice for further help online or by phone, including up-
to-date contact details and language options.
Transparency of
ownership
Personal data
protection
Intuitive process
User guidance
Prior notice
Electronic
authentication
Electronic
documentation
Speed of process
User tracking
Feedback option
Performance
analysis
Referral option
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d) Quality of the whole process:
Potential criterion
Channel preference
Language preference
Life event
presentation
Completeness
Customisation
Ease of whole
process
Digital only
Once-only data
registration
Once-only
authentication
Total quality
Elaboration
The single digital gateway is accessible throughout the EU on all relevant
platforms and devices, including mobile apps.
The single digital gateway is accessible in all official EU languages.
Cross-border services are presented on the single digital gateway from a user
viewpoint, corresponding with life events, rather than from the
administration’s perspective as a series of technical services.
Each potential step under the life event is available and accessible online
through the single digital gateway.
The service user can personalise their ‘customer journey’, choosing the path
they take to realise their desired goal.
The number of steps required to complete the life event is as few as possible,
while still retaining the ability to customise the service to individual needs
and circumstances.
It is possible to complete the entire process without requiring paper-based
(validated) documentation, office visits, telephone contact or postal services.
Ultimately, it should be possible for personal data which is provided to one
EU public administration to be available to any other administrative agency,
subject to safeguards over data protection and data control by the citizen or
business.
Once the user has authenticated online for a service, it is possible to access
another service in the same life event (provided by a different service
provider) without re-authentication.
Each service which is accessible through the single digital gateway should
meet, or be striving to meet, the quality criteria for information (section 7.1),
assistance and problem-solving (section 7.2) and e-procedures (section 7.3).
It is possible for service users to send feedback regarding their experience
with the single digital gateway and to provide reviews and ratings (user
satisfaction) that are published on the website.
The feedback from service users is analysed regularly by the European
Commission, along with the ‘abandon rate’ (the % of site visitors who leave
without completing a transaction) to improve the quality of the procedure
and other aspects of the service.
It is possible for service users to directly get in contact with personalised
assistance services online (using IM or e-mail), there is an up-to-date list of
competent sources of advice for further help online or by phone, including
up-to-date contact details and language options (see section 7.2).
Feedback option
Performance
analysis
Referral option
The report suggests using the quality criteria as indicators within a (balanced) scorecard
approach. They could be also used as standards/targets and form part of an accreditation,
award and labelling initiative.
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ANNEX 7:
C
OMPARISON OF PROBLEM DRIVERS
,
PROBLEMS
,
OBJECTIVE AND OPTIONS
Silo-based approach
Administration-centered design
First generation drawbacks
Neglect of foreign users
Lack of accessibility for
foreign users
Lack of overview of single
market problems
Problem drivers
= Reasons for limited success of
current initiatives
Problems
Lack of online information
= Results of evaluation
Overall objectives
= How we can make it work this
time
Ensure full coverage of
information citizens and
businesses need
Lack of awareness and findability
Lack of quality
Lack of online procedures
Build on best practices and
more advanced digitalisation
Holistic approach
User driven
Integrated EU wide accessibility
Specific objectives
= What we want to achieve
Improve awareness of
services available
Eliminate or overcome
duplication an complexity,
improve findability
Ensure that EU citizens and
Improve quality across the board businesses can complete the
for all information and assistance most important part of their
services, and for procedures
interactions with the
administration online
Make all information and
procedures fully accessible
for non-national citizens and
businesses
Get a more systematic
overview of obstacles
encountered by cross-
border users
1. Nationally
centralised business
and citizens' portals
EC covers EU level
information in Your Europe
MS cover agreed national
information in single national
business and citizens portals
EC and MS all monitor their
own compliance
Coordinated promotion
Information and procedures
should be made available in
Merger of contact points (for
Agreed quality criteria with
EN
services, products,
Voluntary roll-out of online
monitoring via separate user
Online procedures should be
construction products)
procedures based on rolling
feedback tools (one for each
made fully accessible for
work programme
portal)
foreign users
MS can decide on priorities,
EC and MS all monitor their own
National solutions for use of
no legal requirements
compliance
Every national portal has its
documents and data to be
own search facility
made accessible for foreign
users
Information and procedures
should be made available in
EN
Online procedures should be
made fully accessible for
foreign users
Common user interface for
cross-border use of
documents and data to be
designed later
Link to common user
feedback tool on EU and
all national single digital
gateways
2. EU coordinated
approach
EC covers EU level
information in Your Europe
MS cover agreed national
information in different
websites and portals
Joint monitoring of
compliance
Common assistance service
finder
Coordinated promotion
Agreed quality criteria with
monitoring via common user
feedback tool used for all linked
portals
Joint monitoring of compliance
Obligatory to offer 10+10
national procedures fully
online
MS to implement according
to an agreed timetable
Link to common user
feedback tool on EU and
all national websites and
portals
Common search facility
3. EU-wide fully
centralised approach
EC will provide all agreed
information
MS only need to verify
EC monitors compliance
Joint promotion
Fully guaranteed, translation
All 10+10 procedures will
in all or several languages
Common assistance service Quality criteria fully harmonised
be harmonised at EU level
Procedures are fully
finder
and integrated in contract, with
for foreign users (like for accessible to foreign users by Common user feedback
monitoring via single user
EPC and Services Card)
tool will be fully integrated
design
feedback tool
EC will develop IT structure Integrated user interface for
Single search facility and
EC monitors compliance
for procedures within IMI
fully harmonised presentation
cross-border use of
of information
documents and data
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ANNEX 8:
S
ERVICES TO BE COVERED BY THE SINGLE DIGITAL GATEWAY
This annex contains the assistance services that will be covered by the gateway as foreseen in
Table 1.3 of the impact assessment, as well as EU services providing information. (The below
grouping into assistance services and information is only indicative, as some have
competencies in both fields.)
The information and assistance services listed in this annex will be covered by the legal
instrument for the single digital gateway in the sense that they would need to meet the quality
criteria, be part of coordinated promotion actions, integrate a user feedback mechanism and
link up to the user search interface of the single digital gateway.
A
Assistance services
The Points of Single Contact – EUGO network
396
The Points of Single Contact (PSCs) are online portals for entrepreneurs active in the services
sector. Some Member States have in addition physical offices fulfilling the function of PSCs.
All PSCs are connected through the EUGO Network. It is a legal requirement to have a PSC
in each EU country since December 2009 as set out in the Services Directive (Directive
2006/123/EC). EU countries are not legally obliged to make available information and
procedures on topics like tax and social security that are of relevance to businesses but outside
the scope of the Services Directive. The requirement to make procedures available
electronically has been implemented differently across Member States, resulting in very
different degrees of online transactionality and only in few cases to full online availability for
cross-border users. Some Member States have integrated the PSCs into e-government portals
developed for national businesses, in others two or more portals exist next to each other with
more or less strong inter-linkages. For more details about the performance of the PSCs see
Annex 3 on evaluation and the PSC study.
Product Contact Points (PCP)
The Mutual Recognition Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 764/2008) provides for Product
Contact Points (PCP) to be set up in each Member State. PCPs provide companies from other
EU countries with information about national technical rules applicable to a specific type of
product, about contact details of the competent authorities and about remedies generally
available in the event of a dispute about these rules. Product Contact Points should respond
free of charge and within 15 working days of receiving a request. They are encouraged to
provide their services in several languages and to provide personalised advice to users. The
service covers only products that are not subject to harmonised requirements provided in EU
legislation. Not all PCPs have a website.
396
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/eu-go/
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New Commission initiative: Extension of Product Contact Points
397
and possible revision of
Mutual Recognition Regulation
Two ongoing Commission initiatives aim, inter alia, at improving the PCPs. In the context of
the possible revision of the Mutual Recognition Regulation, one key policy idea is to extend
the scope of the PCPs to also cover the harmonised sector, so that businesses can receive an
all-encompassing reply on the national and EU rules applying to their products. For further
details see Annex 3 and the inception impact assessments
398 399
for two planned initiatives to
improve the functioning of the Single Market for goods.
8.1
Your Europe Advice
400
Your Europe Advice (Your Europe Action Plan COM(2013) 636 final) is a free of charge
assistance service for citizens and businesses in need of tailored advice about their rights
originating from EU law. The advice about how such rights apply in a specific situation is
given by a team of lawyers who cover all EU official languages and are familiar both with EU
law and national laws in all EU countries. These experts have a contract with the European
Commission; the service is financed through the EU budget. Visitors of the Your Europe
Portal are signposted to Your Europe Advice for situations where the information provided
online is not specific enough. They receive a reply within a week after sending a request.
Replies are not binding for the European Commission or national authorities. All requests
dealt with by Your Europe Advice are captured in a data base which forms the basis for
analysis of major, recurring problems for people who use their Single Market rights.
8.2
SOLVIT
401
SOLVIT (Recommendation 2013/461/EU) is a free of charge out-of-the-court problem-
solving service for EU citizens and businesses who consider that their EU rights are not
respected by a public administration in another Member State. A complaining user has to
introduce his request through a simple online form. If the request fulfils certain criteria (e.g.
no related legal proceeding on-going) it is dealt with through a network of SOLVIT offices
with the office the complainant's home country contacting the office of the Member State
where (allegedly) administrative decisions are infringing on the complainant's EU rights.
Requests are as a rule dealt with within 10 weeks. Decisions/agreements reached through
SOLVIT do not pre-empt the possibility of using formal complaint mechanisms or launching
a legal proceeding.
In the Single Market Strategy
402
the European Commission has announced to strengthen
SOLVIT as an enforcement and problem-solving tool. Possible actions would include
stronger links with and delimitation from other complaint handling mechanisms, increasing
awareness and findability through inter alia closer links with relevant online portals, making
more intensive use of the database of SOLVIT cases and communicating success stories more
widely
403
. All cases dealt with by SOLVIT are captured in a data base which forms the basis
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/goods/free-movement-sectors/mutual-recognition/contacts-list_en
http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2017_grow_007_enforcement_compliance_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2017_grow_005_mutual_recognition_revision_en.pdf
http://europa.eu/youreurope/advice/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/index_en.htm
https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2015/EN/1-2015-550-EN-F1-1.PDF
Roadmap not yet published.
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for analysis of major, recurring problems of cross-border active citizens and businesses in the
EU.
8.3
Product Contact Points for Construction (PCPC)
404
According to the Construction Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, ‘CPR’),
Member States have to designate a PCPC to ‘provide information, using transparent and
easily understandable terms, on the provisions within its territory aimed at fulfilling basic
requirements for construction works’. This applies to both national technical and EU
harmonised rules. The objective is to reduce the burdens for companies to familiarise with
national construction product and building legislation. Not all PCPCs have a website.
According to a recent study
405
in the framework of a Fitness Check this has been partially
achieved but also several shortcomings identified. For instance the study cites slow response
to requests for information, poor quality of information provided (answers provided in legal
language, difficult to comprehend and queries not fully answered) and the language barrier.
The study finds that PCPCs are frequently unable to provide legally binding advice for
practical implementation of the CPR. For more details about the performance of the PCPCs
see Annex 3 on evaluation.
8.4
Enterprise Europe Network (EEN)
406
The Enterprise Europe Network is a support network for small and medium sized businesses
(SMEs) that want to do business abroad within the EU or beyond. The Network helps them to
access European and international markets, and provides them with growth-oriented
integrated business and innovation support services to help strengthen their competitiveness
and sustainability. It has 3,000 experts across 600 member organisations in more than 60
countries. Member organisations include chambers of commerce and industry, technology
centres and research institutes. The Network provides a range of services such as
matchmaking events for finding business partners; practical advice on doing business in
another country; targeted market intelligence; information on EU laws and standards; advice
on intellectual property; or help with access to R&I funding (e.g. H2020, SME Instrument).
EEN also acts as an intermediary between European Commission and SMEs for consultations
preparing new EU legislation. Businesses contact national network partner organisations in
their language these take care of translations where needed. The EEN also manages a
feedback database of 8150 practical cases of SMEs encountering difficulties with legislation
which have been encoded by EEN since 2006. EEN partners also provide feedback on
practical cases where SMEs encounter difficulties with legislation. Since 2006 8150 cases
have been encoded in the feedback database created for this purpose.
8.5
European Employment Services (EURES)
407
EURES (Regulation (EU) 2016/589) is a cooperation network designed to facilitate the free
movement of workers within the EU and EEA countries. Partners in the network include
Public Employment Services, Private employment services, trade unions and employers'
organisations. The partners provide information, placement and recruitment services to
404
405
406
407
http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/18242/attachments/1/translations/
http://ec.europa.eu/DocsRoom/documents/19343/attachments/1/translations
http://een.ec.europa.eu/
https://ec.europa.eu/eures/public/en/homepage
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employers and jobseekers. Moreover, EURES provides specific information and facilitates
placements for employers and frontier workers in European cross-border regions. In practice
EURES provides its services through the portal and through a human network of around 1000
EURES advisers that are in contact with jobseekers and employers. The portal is available in
the languages of all participating countries.
8.6
National Contact Points for cross-border healthcare
408
The Patients’ Rights Directive (Directive 2011/24/EU) requires each EU Member State to
establish at least one National Contact Point providing information about the right to receive
health care in other EU countries, including rights to have costs covered; types of treatment
that are reimbursed and the amount of reimbursement; need of prior authorisation and how to
apply for it and how to appeal if rights have not been respected. Moreover National Contact
Points are also required to provide information about the quality and safety standards used in
their Member State along with other relevant information (e.g. patients' rights, complaints and
redress procedures, as well as whether a provider is authorised to provide certain services,
among others).
8.7
National Assistance Centres under Professional Qualifications Directive
409
The Professional Qualifications Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC) obliges Member States to
designate assistance centres to provide information on the recognition of professional
qualifications and guide professionals through the administrative formalities concerning the
recognition of such qualifications. They also inform about national legislation governing the
professions, social legislation, and, where appropriate, the rules of ethics.
8.8
The Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform
410
The ODR platform, established by Regulation (EU) No 524/2013, is a web-based platform
developed by the European Commission, operational since February 2016. Its objective is to
help consumers and traders resolve their contractual disputes about online purchases of goods
and services out-of-court at a low cost in a simple and fast way. It allows consumers to submit
their disputes online in any of the 23 EU languages. The platform transmits the disputes to the
dispute resolution bodies communicated by Member States. Member States have to establish
a national contact point to provide assistance to users of the ODR platform. Businesses
established in the EU that sell goods or services online need to comply with the ADR/ODR
legislation, in particular by informing consumers of the dispute resolution bodies by which
they are covered and by proving a link from their website to the ODR platform.
8.9
European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net)
411
The European Consumer Centre Network "ECC-Net" is a network of offices in all Member
States, co-financed by the European Commission that assist citizens who are shopping cross-
border in the Single Market online or on the spot. The ECCs advice in the national language
on consumer rights, assist to resolve complaints launched against traders based in another EU
country with the aim of achieving amicable outcomes and redirect to an appropriate body if
408
409
410
411
https://ec.europa.eu/health/cross_border_care/docs/cbhc_ncp_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/services/free-movement-professionals/
http://ec.europa.eu/odr
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/solving_consumer_disputes/non-judicial_redress/ecc-net/index_en.htm
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the ECC-Net cannot help. Assistance covers popular consumer topics like on-line shopping,
air passenger rights, car rental problems and internet frauds.
8.10 Europe Direct information centres (EDIC)
412
The European Commission manages a network of information centres, documentation centres
and speakers in every EU country. They provide answers to questions on EU rights, funding,
etc.; access to EU documents and publications including detailed information on European
law, policies and institutions; references to other information sources and contact details for
relevant organisations. They also organise trainings for students on EU-related fact-finding
and research; help to find an EU expert speaker (lawyers, consultants, academics) for EU-
focused events and operate a free of charge call service.
8.11 EU Intellectual Property Rights Helpdesk
413
The European IPR Helpdesk supports cross-border SME and research activities to manage,
disseminate and valorise technologies and other Intellectual Property (IP) Rights and IP assets
at an EU level. Services include information material in the form of newsletters and an online
library, a free Helpline service through phone or fax for direct and confidential IP support by
legal specialists and on-site and online training. Services are available in 13 EU languages
and Turkish.
B
EU services providing information
8.12 Your Europe Portal
414
Your Europe (Your Europe Action Plan COM(2013) 636 final) offers information to EU
citizens and businesses about their basic rights under EU law, about how these rights are
implemented in each individual country (where information has been provided by the national
authorities) and it gives access to free email or telephone contact with EU assistance services,
to get more personalised or detailed help and advice. While information about EU legislation
is provided in all 23 official languages country-specific information is provided, where
possible, in the national language(s) and in English.
8.13 The European e-Justice portal
415
The portal provides information and links on laws and practices in all EU countries about
practical questions like finding a lawyer, consulting a land register or finding basic
information about a judicial system. The target audience are citizens, businesses, lawyers and
judges with cross-border legal questions. The resources range from information on legal aid,
judicial training, European small claims and videoconferencing to links to legal databases,
online insolvency and land registers. It also includes user-friendly forms for various judicial
proceedings, such as the European order for payment. The portal is implemented by the
Commission in very close cooperation with the EU countries. It is available in all 23 official
EU languages.
412
413
414
415
http://europa.eu/european-union/contact/meet-us_en
https://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/
http://europa.eu/youreurope/index.htm
https://e-justice.europa.eu/home.do?action=home
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8.14 The portal covers two procedures, to which the gateway will link:
European Small Claims procedure
416
The European Small Claims procedure (Regulation (EC) No 861/2007), which is accessible
through the e-Justice portal, is designed to simplify and speed up cross-border claims of up to
EUR 2000. It is available to litigants as an alternative to the procedures existing under
national laws. It operates on the basis of standard forms and is as a rule a written procedure. A
judgment given in the European Small Claims Procedure is recognized and enforceable in
another Member State without the need for a declaration of enforceability and without any
possibility of opposing its recognition. Standard forms are available in all languages. From
the handing in of an application there are fixed time spans for the following steps such as the
forwarding to the defendant, the judgement by the court, etc.
The European Payment Order
417
The European Payment Order is a simplified procedure for cross-border monetary claims
which are uncontested by the defendant, based on standard forms available in all EU
languages through the e-Justice portal. The portal also provides information about which
courts can issue a European Payment Order and where the application forms should be sent.
After a form starting the procedure has been filled in, giving all the details of the parties and
the nature and amount of the claim, the responsible court will examine the application, and as
a rule should issue the European Payment Order within 30 days. The defendant then has
another 30 days to serve or oppose it. If the latter happens, the case must be transferred to the
normal civil law courts to be dealt with under national law.
8.15 Technical Regulation Information System database (TRIS)
418
The TRIS database is an information tool aimed at allowing companies to detect upcoming
national technical regulations that might affect the marketing of their products in the Single
Market. It is based on a notification procedure established by Directive (EU) 2015/1535
dealing with information, prevention and dialogue in the field of technical regulations on
products and Information Society services. EU countries must inform the European
Commission of any draft technical regulation before its adoption. Starting from the date of
notification, a three-month standstill period comes into place, during which the EU country
must refrain from adopting the technical regulation in question. This procedure enables the
Commission and other EU countries to examine the proposed text and respond. Notifications
are translated into at least English, French and German. A mailing list mechanism allows
economic operators and stakeholders to be automatically alerted when a draft regulation is
announced. Final adopted national regulations also need to be notified to and included in
TRIS.
8.16 VAT Information portal
419
This European Commission webpage offers basic information about value added tax rules and
procedures in the EU. As most of them are decided at national level the portal links to the
416
417
418
419
https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_small_claims-42-en.do
https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_order_for_payment_procedures-41-en.do
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/tris/en/
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat_en
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respective national websites. There are currently a vast number of sources of VAT
information across the EU taking many forms, including online information portals and
advisory services. The aim of the VAT portal is to create added value by matching specific
needs based on an analysis of users and their habits, on the principles of user-centricity and
modularity, and on search engines that allow for a comparison of relevant information across
Member States in English.
8.17 EU Trade Export Helpdesk
420
The EU Trade Export Helpdesk offers information to companies in third countries exporting
goods to the EU. Through the European Commission website they can find information on
EU tariffs, requirements (e.g. plant health, public health, labelling, etc.), preferential
arrangements, quotas and statistics relating to imports from trade partner countries. A
database with a search function allows finding this information easily per product per
destination Member State and for both requirements resulting from EU and from national
legislation. The service is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and
Russian.
420
http://exporthelp.europa.eu/thdapp/form/output?action=tariff&prodLine=80&mode=specificRequirements
&status=null&simDate=20151202&languageId=en&cmd=chap&taricCode=1001110010&partnerId=AL&r
eporterId=BG&simulationDate=02%2F12%2F2015&submit=Search
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ANNEX 9:
O
VERVIEW OF INITIATIVES WITH LINKS TO THE SINGLE DIGITAL GATEWAY
This annex gives an overview of existing services and websites to which the gateway will link
in order to give access to them, planned services and websites to which the gateway will link
once they are available online, and initiatives of interest in the general context of developing
and over time improving the gateway. The services included in this annex will not fall under
the single digital gateway Regulation.
A.
Existing services and websites to which the gateway will link
European professional card (EPC)
421
The EPC, introduced by Directive 2013/55/EC (amending Directive 2005/36/EC), is an
electronic certificate issued via the first EU-wide fully online procedure for the recognition of
qualifications for five professions (nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, real estate agents
and mountain guides). This digital procedure is based on the Single Market Information
System (IMI) and allows professionals to communicate with the relevant authorities inside a
secure network. The IMI also provides for an official, multilingual communication channel
between the regulating authorities for professionals in EU countries to facilitate their
cooperation. The EPC does not replace the 'traditional' recognition procedures under the
Professional Qualifications Directive, but it does offer an option for professionals who wish to
work either temporarily or permanently in another EU country. It might be extended to other
professions in the future.
9.1
EUROPASS
422
With a view to facilitating movement across intra-EU borders of workers the EU has
developed five mutually recognised document formats that make it easier to communicate
skills and qualifications. Two documents are filled in by citizens themselves, the Curriculum
Vitae and the Language Passport that both rely on self-assessment. Three documents are
issued by education and training authorities: the Europass Mobility records the knowledge
and skills acquired in another European country; the Certificate Supplement describes the
knowledge and skills acquired by holders of vocational education and training certificates;
and the Diploma Supplement describes the knowledge and skills acquired by holders of
higher education degrees. The Commission is considering
423
a revision of the Europass
Framework to set up an intuitive and seamless online service platform. The aim is to provide
web-based tools for documenting and sharing information on skills and qualifications, as well
as free self-assessment tools. This initiative will focus primarily on Europass, the EU Skills
Panorama, the Learning opportunities and qualifications portal, and the Euroguidance,
Europass and European Qualifications Framework networks as these are the ones where most
synergies can be exploited in the short term.
421
422
423
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/services/free-movement-professionals/policy/european-
professional-card_en
http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/
In its Communication on the New Skills Agenda for Europe
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1223.
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9.2
Mini one-stop-shop (MOSS) for VAT
424
Since 2015, as foreseen in Regulation (EU) No 904/2010, new VAT rules apply for
businesses in the fields of telecommunications, broadcasting, and electronic services (e.g.
supply of websites, software, databases, films, music, distant teaching, and web-hosting).
Such services are now taxed in the country of the customer. The MOSS allows businesses to
submit their VAT returns and to pay the applicable VAT due to a number of EU Member
States through an online system in one of the EU Member States. This must be a country
where the company has a permanent establishment. Therefore, businesses do not have to
register for VAT in numerous EU countries and submit multiple VAT return declarations. The
tax authorities of the EU Member State have established separate MOSS online platforms.
The 2015 Mini One Stop Shop for B2C supplies of electronic services, which is hosted by tax
administrations in Member States, is an efficient system which has reduced compliance costs
by 95% compared to the alternative of direct registration. This has led to annual
administrative savings of EUR 40,000 per business or a total of EUR 500 million. EUR 3
billion VAT was collected through the system in 2015 representing up to EUR 18 billion in
trade.
B
9.3
Planned services and websites to which the gateway will link once they are
available online
Extension of Mini one-stop-shop for VAT
On 1/12/2016 the Commission presented a legislative proposal to extend the Mini One Stop
shop (MOSS) to online B2C supplies of goods and other services. It is currently under
discussion in Council.
This current Mini One Stop Shop should be extended to cross-border B2C online sales of
physical goods ordered online both within and outside the EU. Instead of having to declare
and pay VAT to each individual Member State where their customers are based, businesses
would be able to make a single declaration and payment in their own Member State.
The overall objective is to minimise burdens attached to cross-border e-commerce arising
from different VAT regimes, provide a level playing field for EU business and ensure that
VAT revenues accrue to the Member State of the consumer. It is estimated that the proposal
to extend the One-Stop Shop will reduce administrative costs for business by EUR 2.3 billion
and will lead to an increase in intra-EU e-commerce. The extension of the one-stop shop
combined with the removal of the VAT exemption for the importation of small consignments
is estimated to increase VAT revenues for Member States by EUR 7 billion annually by 2021
and improve the competitiveness of EU business.
9.4
Transition to E-procurement - European Single Procurement Document (ESPD)
425
The new Directives on Public Procurement provide for a gradual transition to electronic
procurement by October 2018. Simplification of procurement procedures will contribute to
higher transparency, efficiency, cost-savings and modernisation of public administrations.
Supporting actions by the European Commission include sharing of best practices between
424
425
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat_en
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/public-procurement/e-procurement_en
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the Member States, assistance via the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), as
well as activities to promote interoperability of national systems. Important milestones of the
transition process are the following:
-
-
central purchasing bodies should move to full electronic means of communication
including electronic bid submission by April 2017;
e-submission should be made mandatory for all contracting authorities and all
procurement procedures by October 2018;
The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD), an online standard self-declaration for
all public procurement above the EU threshold, is envisaged to implement the once-only
principle in public procurement. This will be complemented by a new version with new
functionalities (including links to ESPD) of e-Certis – an online tool on certificates and
attestations required in public procurement.
9.5
European Services e-Card
426
The Commission has proposed to introduce a Services e-Card. It foresees a simplified
electronic procedure that will make it easier for providers of business services (e.g.
engineering firms, IT consultants, and organisers of trade shows) and construction services to
complete the administrative formalities required to provide services abroad. Services
providers will simply have to liaise with a single interlocutor in their home country and in
their own language. The home country interlocutor would then verify the necessary data and
transmit it to the host Member State. The host Member State retains the current power to
apply domestic regulatory requirements and to decide whether the applicant can offer services
on its territory. The e-card would not affect existing employer obligations or workers' rights.
9.6
Interconnection of EU Business Registers
427
In line with the Directive on the interconnection of central, commercial and companies
registers (Directive 2012/17/EU), a system of interconnection of business registers is being
set up at EU level by June 2017 jointly by EU Member States and the European Commission.
The system is known as the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS). When in
place, BRIS will ensure access at EU level to information on companies registered in the
Member States, and enable, for the first time, the electronic communication between all EU
business registers. They will be able to exchange information in relation to foreign branches
and cross-border mergers of companies. Thanks to BRIS, citizens, businesses and national
authorities will be able to search for information filed by companies in the national registers.
9.7
Electronic Interconnection of EU Insolvency Registers
The Commission will further develop an electronic interconnection of insolvency registers to
enhance transparency and legal certainty in the internal market. Member States are obliged to
set up their own domestic insolvency electronic registers by 2018[3], while the establishment
of the interconnection of insolvency registers is set for 2019, with the aim to enhance the
effective administration of cross-border insolvency proceedings, establishing a common
framework for the benefit of all stakeholders. This will become available on the European e-
Justice Portal.
426
427
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-23_en.htm
https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_business_registers_at_european_level-105-en.do
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The system shall provide a search service in all the official languages of the institutions of the
Union in order to make available the mandatory information and any other documents or
information included in the insolvency registers which the Member States choose to make
available through the European e-Justice Portal.
9.8
European Mobility Portal on Social Security (EMPSS)
428
A feasibility study is on-going which explores an online tool that would assist mobile people
in their contacts with public authorities, primarily related to social security, and would
simplify the procedures they are confronted with when exercising their right to free
movement. The tool could also help public authorities fight instances of fraud and error. The
study assesses potential options for scope, architecture, functionality and their impacts.
C.
Initiatives of interest in the general context of developing and over time improving
the gateway
Initiative for a Single-member private limited liability company ('SUP')
9.9
The Commission proposal for a directive on single member private limited liability
companies ('SUP') in April 2014
429
, which is currently in the inter-institutional decision-
making process, includes provisions on cross-border on-line registration specifically for the
legal form of SUP.
9.10 Company law initiative to facilitate the use of digital technologies throughout a
company’s lifecycle
The Commission initiative on facilitating the use of digital technologies throughout a
company's lifecycle was announced in the Commission Work Programme for 2017.
430
This
initiative will look at the entire company lifecycle and it aims to address, among others, the
online registration of companies as legal entities and branches with business registers.
9.11 The eIDAS Regulation
431
The Regulation (EU) 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic
transactions in the Single Market (eIDAS) from 2014 aims to provide a predictable regulatory
environment to enable secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses,
citizens and public authorities. On the one hand, the Regulation ensures that people and
businesses can use their own national electronic identification schemes (eIDs) to access public
services in other EU countries where eIDs are available: Member States will have to
recognise the eIDs notified by other Member States as of 29 September 2018. On the other
hand, the Regulation creates a European Single Market for e-trust services such as electronic
signatures, electronic seals, time stamp, and electronic delivery service - by ensuring that they
will work across borders and have the same legal status as traditional paper based processes.
Implementation of the Regulation is supported by cooperation and technical tools:
428
429
430
431
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=624&langId=en&callId=458
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52014PC0212
http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/pdf/atwork/pdf/cwp_2017_annex_i_en.pdf
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/trust-services-and-eid
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-
-
Cooperation between Member States is being facilitated through the eIDAS
Cooperation Network.
As regards technical tools, the Commission funds the development of so-called “CEF
building blocks” such as the eID or the eSignature building blocks which are usable in
any European project to facilitate the delivery of digital public services across borders.
See also Annex 10 on available IT building blocks for further technical details.
When fully implemented and operational in practice, the eIDAS Regulation will be an
important enabler for numerous cross-border online procedures as envisaged to be promoted
as part of the single digital gateway.
9.12 Regulation on the free circulation of public documents
432
The Regulation (EU/2016/1191) adopted in June 2016 covers public documents such as
certificates, notarial acts, judgments and consular documents in certain areas such as birth; a
person being alive; death; name; marriage; divorce; registered partnership; parenthood;
adoption; residence; nationality; absence of a criminal record and the right to vote in
municipal and European Parliament elections; public documents in order to prove the legal
status of a company. Under the Regulation, when a citizen or business presents a public
document (original or certified copy) issued in another Union country the receiving
authorities will no longer be able to require an 'apostille' stamp to prove its authenticity. This
exemption will save citizens the time and money needed to obtain such stamp. In addition
national authorities cannot require a translation of public documents if it is in one of the
official languages of the Union country. The Regulation also introduces multilingual standard
forms that can be used as translation aids attached to their public document. When used the
receiving authority can require a translation only in exceptional circumstances and even then
it must accept a certified translation made in another Union country.
When fully applied as from 2019 the Regulation will partially reduce the administrative
burdens on cross-border active businesses and citizens also for procedures envisaged to be
covered by the single digital gateway.
9.13 European eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020
433
The Action Plan was adopted in April 2016 and has as key objectives to modernise public
administration, to achieve the digital Single Market, and to engage more with citizens and
businesses to deliver high quality services. The single digital gateway is one of the actions
mentioned in the Action Plan as well as several others of the below mentioned initiatives. A
stakeholder engagement platform
434
enables all kinds of stakeholders to submit proposals for
additional actions to be taken up.
9.14 Start-up initiative
The Commission adopted its Communication "Europe's next leaders: the Start-up and Scale-
up Initiative" on 22/11/2016. The single digital gateway is foreseen as the action to help
tackle some of the identified
administrative barriers
especially in a cross-border situation.
432
433
434
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/civil/judicial-cooperation/document-circulation/index_en.htm
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-egovernment-action-plan-2016-2020
https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/egovernment4eu
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9.15 Digital Transformation – Redesign of the European Commission web presence
435
The Digital Transformation project is a process of redesigning and streamlining of the
European Commission's web presence that was in the past characterised by strong
segmentation of content according to Commission Services. In order to provide high quality,
accessible online services to citizens and businesses in the EU, the Commission is
transforming its websites into a thematic, user-centered web presence. The Commission's web
presence will be thematically organised according to one single information architecture and
align organisational goals with user needs and tasks. It will provide modern online services
and up-to-date information to citizens and businesses. This will improve access to information
on EU programmes and their funding opportunities. Key objectives are to design by 2018 a
web presence that is more in line with user needs and to reduce duplication and
inconsistencies resulting from the current segmentation.
9.16 Core Public Service Vocabulary (CPSV)
436
The Core Public Service Vocabulary is a data model financed by the ISA Programme
437
that
captures the fundamental characteristics of a service offered by public administration.
Even within the same country, public services are documented following different flavours of
national, regional or local traditions. This fragmented view of the public service concept
impacts on the quality and the efficiency of public service provision for cross-border users,
increases administrative burdens and makes public service provision more costly. The Core
Public Service Vocabulary aims to offer a technology independent, generic representation of a
service provided by public administration. The vocabulary will emerge as the common
denominator of existing national, regional and local public service models, providing a lingua
franca that will enable the seamless exchange of services and information across different e-
Government systems. See also Annex 10 on available IT building blocks for further technical
details.
9.17 Pilot on the Once Only Principle
438
The Commission has launched a large-scale pilot to test the once-only principle for businesses
cross-border in a business-to-public administration area. The project, with the participation of
20 Member States is being funded through the Horizon 2020 research and innovation
framework programme and started in January 2017. The areas to pilot will include business
mobility, exchanges between business registers and maritime certificates. In addition, further
actions to support the implementation of the "once-only" principle have been launched under
the ISA programme and continue under the ISA
2
programme; the best practices and
recommendations for base registers management and the semantic specifications for
description of public services (essential for the implementation of coherent and inter-
connectable catalogues of services).
Another parallel pilot will assess the feasibility of a citizen case.
435
436
437
438
https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/eu-digital/home_en
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/core_public_service/description
http://ec.europa.eu/isa/
https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/content/pillar-2-13-once-only-principle-large-scale-pilot-project
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ANNEX 10: V
ISUAL OVERVIEW OF LINKS WITH OTHER INITIATIVES
202