Do you have a problem with the internal market?

When João Camarada, an unemployed Portuguese maritime mechanic, was offered a job in Spain, the Spanish authority at first refused permission. Twenty years after the introduction of the Single Market that shouldn't happen but, sadly, it does rather often – be it with cross-border pension rights, social security issues or taxation. In order to tackle problems like these, SOLVIT, the Internal Market Problem Solving Network was created ten years ago. Last year SOLVIT handled 1,300 cases and resolved just under 90% of them. It's very nice to solve these cases because you really get to help these people and they're mostly very happy when you can do something for them. But SOLVIT is a tiny operation. The Belgian office, for example, employs just two staff. With 12.3 million citizens and businesses moving around Europe, the potential for more cases is enormous. SOLVIT as a mechanism actually works very well. Member states are supporting it. In our view they need to put more resources behind it, but it is cutting through the bureaucracy. We'd like to see SOLVIT beefed up as a tool and made more prominent. The network also helped put together a survey among citizens and businesses that the European Commission conducted. The result is a list of 20 pet hates when it comes to the Single Market malfunctioning. Parliament's Internal Market Committee has put its weight behind the exercise and this week unanimously passed a report demanding more political attention to sorting out free movement of goods, services and people. Somehow this report reached a consensus among all political groups to address the major problems identified by citizens in the form of 20 major concerns of citizens and businesses about the functioning of the internal market. MEPs across the political spectrum believe that a properly functioning Single Market will also be crucial in overcoming the current crisis.

EuroparlTV video ID: 66706fa6-3d5d-4126-8fb3-a0d7011a4d86