As the EU celebrates 30 years of the Single Market, Malta calls for the removal of transport-related barriers

While attending the EU Competitiveness Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels, Economy Minister, Silvio Schembri, expressed Malta’s overall support for the compromise text of the Regulation for Eco Design Requirements for Sustainable Products, but called for evidence-based legislation and an assessment of the impacts, particularly on SMEs.

The proposal seeks to make sustainable products the norm in the EU, by addressing product design and setting new requirements to make products more durable, reliable, reusable, upgradable, reparable, easier to maintain, recyclable, and more energy and resource efficient, a government statement read. While Malta is in principle supportive, Minister Schembri expressed the need for more clarity on certain aspects of the proposal, a stand that was echoed by various member states, it read.

Of particular significance, as the EU celebrates 30 years of the Single Market, was the attendance of Professor Mario Monti at this council. The former Prime Minister of Italy and EU Commissioner, Mario Monti, was the architect of the New Strategy for the Single Market in 2010, on which the Communication Towards a Single Market Act was eventually built. Professor Monti focused his intervention particularly on the

EU Patent System, as an initiative to strengthen the Single Market and boost EU competitiveness, as well as giving his overall reflections on the Single Market today and beyond.

In his intervention, Minister

Schembri called for the elimination of additional transport-related barriers that still exist for businesses operating in remote areas and on the periphery of the EU, such as Malta, “which still face significant challenges, and often render them uncompetitive.” Minister Schembri called on the Commission to study this phenomenon more closely at EU level, and to come up with effective policy solutions.

The same council also discussed the long-term competitiveness of the EU, whereby nine particular reinforcing drivers are being proposed, namely a better functioning Single Market, better access to private capital and investments, more public investment and infrastructure, more research and innovation, more energy investments and faster rollouts, circularity, digitalisation, better education and skills, and finally, improved trade and open strategic autonomy.

Minister Schembri expressed Malta’s overall support for this approach and methodology; however, he also called for refinement and reconsideration of certain KPIs, and said that member states must be constructively assisted to achieve these targets, without ending up burdened with additional costs and bureaucracy to attain them.