Abstract
The free provision of services in the European Internal Market is still being prevented from coming into fruition by serious obstacles. The crucial step to the elimination of barriers and liberalization of market access for service providers was to be the implementation of the Services Directive in 2009. However, the provision of services across the EU is still subject to restrictions stemming mostly from differences in the Member States’ national regulations and, therefore, service providers cannot exploit the potential of the EU Internal Market to the full extent. The aim of the paper is to identify barriers preventing service providers from free access to the European Internal Market and to present the most important ones. The paper is based on an analysis of the literature, especially of documents and reports of the EU institutions and other European research bodies. The obstacles facing service providers in the European Internal Market are mainly of a regulatory nature. The most significant ones include differences in legislation and a lack of initiative to simplify it, problems with access to information, differences in the recognitionm of qualifications resulting in restrictions on access to service activities, divergent and disproportionate regulations of service professions and, last but not least, problems with civil liability insurance for service providers.
Highlights
The European Union is currently the most integrated group of countries in the world
The provision of services across the EU is still subject to restrictions stemming mostly from differences in the Member States’ national regulations and, service providers cannot exploit the potential of the EU Internal Market to the full extent
The law created by treaties and other EU acts sets up basic principles for the functioning of the European Single Market in services, while detailed solutions are left for Member States
Summary
The European Union is currently the most integrated group of countries in the world. Since its founding, there has been an ever closer co-operation between Member States, leading to the. The idea of an internal market as one of the stages of integration was supposed to allowservice providers (individuals and businesses) to provide their services in a free and unrestricted manner in the entire territory of the EU. This was a crucial issue, as service markets were characterized by a great number of restrictive regulations and other barriers. Despite the fact that in 2016 intra-EU trade accounted for over 55% of all commercial operations, there was an overall downward trend, forin 2005 it accounted for over 58% To reverse this trend, the focus should be increased on reducing barriers to the free provision of services in the European Union. The paper is based on the analysis of the primary literature, especially documents and reports of the EU institutions and other European research institutions
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