30 January 2026, the European Commission adopted the 2026 Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report, the sixth in an annual series, evaluating the functioning of the Single Market and assessing the conditions for businesses to innovate, grow, and compete while delivering sustainable prosperity for European citizens.
The report draws on 29 key performance indicators, covering areas such as market integration and barriers, electricity prices and investment trends, and identifies priority areas for action.
The report shows that six indicators have decreased, six have improved, and 15 remain broadly unchanged. Two indicators are new.
The indicators that have shown improvement between the last report and this one are the recognition of skills and qualifications needed for EU citizens to exercise their profession in other Member States; EU market surveillance, measured by product investigations carried out by market surveillance authorities; the share of companies in the EU using artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data analytics; the volume of InvestEU investments supporting the industrial transition has increased; the share of renewable energy generation with respect to total energy consumption; the annually-added capacity to generate renewable electricity.
The indicators that have worsened are the share of EU GDP represented by trade between EU Member States; the share of transposed EU Single Market Directives for which infringement proceedings were launched; the average time needed to establish a new industrial standard; labour shortages in occupations requiring specific skills for the green transition; private investment, as a share of GDP.
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