Single Market
At a glance
The Single Market is a foundation of the European project and is essential to the EU’s continued prosperity.
The Single Market provides for harmonised legislation in the EU and guarantees the free movement of goods across EU borders. Allowing businesses to operate under the same set of rules in all Member States is also a major enabler of economies of scale, driving competitiveness and investment in innovation.
As highlighted in the reports “Much More Than a Market” and “The Future of European Competitiveness”, by former Italian Prime Ministers Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi respectively, the Single Market plays a pivotal role in facilitating the EU’s Green and Digital transitions, further emphasising its critical importance to Europe’s future prosperity and sustainability. Considering the former, a functioning European market is essential to preserve the competitive edge of European businesses.
Packaging and Single Market
Rigorous implementation and enforcement of the Single Market principles are key to ensure harmonised legal requirements facilitating economies of scale, long-term investments and strengthening the business case for innovative products and technologies.
The importance of a functioning Single Market for packaging and packaged goods is enshrined in the main piece of EU legislation on packaging, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). By providing a harmonised regulatory framework across the EU, the Regulation helps preventing different national measures in the management of packaging and packaging waste that would create divergent levels of environmental requirements and a serious impediment to the free movement of goods.
Safeguarding the integrity of the Single Market is not only a precondition for the free movements of packaging and packaged goods across the EU, but it is essential to strengthen the implementation of packaging and packaging waste targets in all Member States and to encourage the development of fully integrated EU markets for waste and secondary raw materials.
Achieving a strong and resilient single market for packaging and packaging goods is a key priority of EUROPEN to continue to drive investments in innovation in the packaging industry and support its sustainable transition.
Our position
Clearly defined and harmonised EU provisions are the necessary first step to avoid the adoption of diverging and disproportionate national measures, which result in EU market fragmentation. Core provisions should be clearly enshrined in the main EU legislative text or in its implementing acts.
When implementing and transposing EU law on packaging and packaged goods, national legislators must ensure compliance with the Single Market principles and with Article 4 of the PPWR.
These conditions are essential to support the EU Green Deal’s ambitions and the overall objective of competitiveness by avoiding negative impacts on legal certainty, ensuring the effective enforcement of environmental targets and safeguarding the free movement of packaging and packaged goods.
In that sense, EUROPEN supports the Council Conclusions on Competitiveness, which underscored the urgency of removing remaining barriers and enhancing regulatory cooperation among Member States, and has put forward concrete recommendations in view of the EU Commission’s Single Market Strategy 2025, to be unveiled in June.