Should the EU Service Directives be improved?

The draft directive for an internal market in services submitted by the European Commission in January 2004 has been the subject of heated discussion. As a result, the European Council at its spring summit in Brussels revised the proposal. For Holger Wenzel, German Retail Federation (HDE), the services directive could make a valuable contribution to making "Europe to the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based market of the world. The dismantling of obstacles to the freedom of establishment and to the free trade of services will lead to a completion of the single market for services. The Federation sees room for improvement, but the proposal offers a good starting position." Hanns-Eberhard Schleyer, Federation of German Small Businesses, views the draft more critically. "In its draft directive for an internal market in services, many concrete proposals are questionable or misguided. This is particularly the case with regard to the unlimited coverage of the directive, the conceptual approach of an extensive resort to the country of origin principle and the intended changes of the control responsibilities for workers posted abroad. These deficiencies necessitate a fundamental revision of the draft directive. Also Evelyne Gebhardt, SPD, European Parliament, agrees with this opinion: "It its entirety, the draft submitted to the European Parliament is unacceptable. The text is unclear in too many places, leading to legal uncertainties. This begins already with the directive's imprecise area of application. Heide Rühle, Green Party, European Parliament, proposes an alternative approach for the liberalisation of the market for services: "Only a limited number of commercial services should be covered and a harmonisation of regulations should be the aim."