The European Commission has introduced a new package to simplify rules and reduce bureaucracy across the Single Market. This package aims to make it easier for businesses to operate, innovate, and grow, while maintaining high standards of protection for consumers and the environment.
The identified barriers related to goods are the following:
• Fragmented EU rules on packaging, labeling and waste:
The Commission will make product labels clearer and more accessible. In the future, digital labels using QR codes will allow consumers to easily access information about products, while also making it simpler for businesses to comply with labeling rules. The Digital Product Passport is a container for product-related information, including labels, and will be gradually rolled out with the aim to ultimately use it across all EU product legislation. In addition, the Commission will propose to harmonise and simplify requirements related to extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes which cover the end-of-life management of their products, including by proposing a digital one-stop shop to accomplish formalities and even earlier/immediately remove unjustified authorised representative requirements from EPR schemes and reduce reporting obligations.
• Outdated product rules and insufficient market surveillance capacities in Member States:
The Commission proposes to better coordinate at EU level activities of national market surveillance authorities. The Commission also envisages to modernise the EU legal framework for products, the so-called New Legislative Framework, and adapt it to new realities.
• Delays in standard setting, which make it complex and costly for businesses to show their compliance with EU rules:
The Commission intends to review the Standardisation Regulation to enhance the speed and flexibility of the standardisation process, ensure more balanced stakeholder participation, in particular for startups, SMEs, civil society, and academia, improve access to standards, and reinforce the EU’s role as the global standard-setter. In the meantime, the adopted Omnibus package together with this Strategy will allow the Commission to establish common specifications which businesses can use to prove that they comply with legal requirements in situations where standards are not available.
• Territorial supply constraints:
The Commission will develop tools to act against certain territorial supply constraints (TSC) in the retail sector. When harmful and unjustified, TSC may limit consumer choice and contribute to significant price differences among products across the EU, notably for daily consumer goods, covering situations beyond those captured by competition law.
For more information, please see Questions and answers on the Single Market Strategy