The EU Competitiveness Council today formally adopted the EU Supply Chain Act, with the majority of Member States voting in favour of it and Germany abstaining. The Member States must now transpose the directive into national law.

State Secretary Sven Giegold, who represented the German government in Brussels today, commented as follows:

Economic activity must be in harmony with human rights and be sustainable. The EU Supply Chain Act ensures common and fair rules throughout the internal market. We will now ensure it is implemented effectively in Germany, without undue red tape.

Based on the Council conclusions adopted today, the EU Competitiveness Council also announced mandates for the new European Commission on future EU industrial and internal market policy, in the run-up to the European elections. A priority task for the new Commission will be to strengthen the competitiveness of the European industrial sector and to place a focus on the targeted and forward-looking development of the internal market.

The Council conclusions identify a number of areas that are relevant to this, including the ambitious continuation of the green and digital transformation within the scope of the Green Deal as a driver of growth and innovation, the reduction of bureaucracy and the creation of an innovation-friendly policy environment, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the promotion of investment, the expansion of energy networks and infrastructure in the internal market and the pursuit of an ambitious, open and sustainable trade agenda.

Prior to drafting the Council conclusions, the Member States had held intensive negotiations on what these should contain, and Germany was able to successfully negotiate important points. The draft Council conclusions on the internal market were presented following the presentation of the High-Level Report on the Future of the Single Market by Enrico Letta.

State Secretary Sven Giegold said:

In building a strong internal market and a competitive European industry, we are making the EU fit for the future. We are continuing the Green Deal and the Green Deal Industrial Plan as an agenda for growth and sustainability. We must use the coming years to ensure that the EU can maintain its competitive edge and advantages as a place for business as well as its industrial leadership in global competition. To achieve this, we must strengthen an investment and innovation-friendly climate in the EU and continue to work on harmonising and simplifying the EU’s regulatory framework, reducing unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and speeding up approval procedures.

In adopting conclusions on public procurement, the Member States issued further mandates to the Commission at the Council. Under the EU’s current public procurement legislation, there is insufficient competition when awarding public contracts and relatively few contracts are awarded to SMEs. In addition, the strategic dimension of public procurement policy still needs to be developed with a view to achieving important ecological, social or innovative objectives. The current legal framework must therefore be analysed in depth and likely has to be revised.

In the Council, Germany is also pushing for an initiative to improve and simplify procedures for the posting of workers by means of a standardised and digital registration form (so-called eDeclaration) that is to be used on a voluntary basis, as well as an EU-wide standardised registration portal. In the future, the portal is also to enable the filing of applications for the A1 certificate under social security law where necessary. Since there are sometimes major differences between the legal requirements for the posting of workers in the various Member States, companies, especially SMEs, are currently still faced with major bureaucratic challenges in the cross-border provision of services. As a first step, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ireland, Poland, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary and Portugal are therefore planning to implement the eDeclaration at national level and signed a Declaration of Intent (Absichtserklärung (PDF, 96 KB)) on this today. The aim is to maintain the high level of social security and labour protection. It is very important to Germany that the initiative is supported by more stakeholders and that the work on an EU-wide standardised registration portal is continued with ambition in the new legislative period.