The Single Market Programme has been approved by the European Parliament. The regulation, published in the EU Official Journal, entered into force on 3 May and will apply retroactively from 1 January 2021.
The Single Market Programme aims to strengthen the EU’s internal market by supporting a wide range of activities, from improving food safety to helping SMEs. The overarching goal is to foster cooperation and improve sustainability within the Single Market. Enterprise Europe Network is also part of this programme.
This programme will have a budget of €4.2 billion for 2021-2027 and will support:
- EU businesses: Actions to support SMEs will focus on international competitiveness, development of digital and entrepreneurial skills and the green transition. Business clusters and social economy enterprises can now also access support to.
- better governance of internal market: Market surveillance will be financed via the new programme through a separate budgetary envelope, contributing to efforts to curb risks for consumers, whether through scams or unsafe or counterfeit products, at a time when e-commerce is growing. The programme will support actions promoting a greater choice of high quality products and services offered in the internal market.
- stronger consumer protection: The priority actions include improving the overall protection and awareness of EU consumer rights, as well as actions to promote sustainable consumption and ensure product safety.
- high level of health and safety: A large part of the programme will be dedicated to guaranteeing health and food safety, for example by supporting effective veterinary and phytosanitary controls in the case of health crises, endorsing safe production, and improving the competitiveness of the EU’s food industry.
- data gathering for high-quality, comparable, and reliable European statistics.
Factsheet: The single market between 2021-2027
