Call for expression of interest: Pilot for border regions to overcome barriers for the cross-border provision of services

Deadline: Oct 30, 2020  
CALL EXPIRED

In our SME strategy, we announced that the European Commission will support a pilot on pioneer partnerships among border regions to enhance cooperation to enforce the single market and remove administrative barriers.

Deadline:

 30 October 2020

The Commission staff working document ‘Business Journey on the single market: Practical Obstacles and Barriers’ identifies 31 barriers that prevent businesses from exploiting the full potential of the Single Market.

In the ‘Long term action plan for better implementation and enforcement of single market rules’, we acknowledged that further integration and improvement of the services markets could increase the EU-GDP by some €300 billion per year. Although the Services Directive facilitated the cross-border service provision since its adoption, the intra-EU share of trade in services reaches around 8% of the EU-GDP, while the intra-EU share of trade in goods accounts for 25% of the EU-GDP.  At the same time, the European Union is a service economy with an overall share of 70% in the Union’s GDP.

As the communication ‘The Single Market in a changing world’ already pointed out, with the increasing globalised competition, the competitive advantage of the Union rests in the service input and the service component of the different value chains. Cross-border service provision is therefore key to the future competitiveness of the EU. This is even more valid in light of the efforts to relaunch the EU economy after the COVID-19 crisis and the need to become more resilient.

The Commission contracted a study on the economic impact of border obstacles on GDP and employment levels in internal land border regions (included in COM(2017) 534) which estimates that, even if only 20% of the existing obstacles were removed, border regions would increase their GDP by 2%

The present call and pilot should also provide synergy with the proposed European cross-border mechanism (ECBM), which aims to resolve legal and/or administrative border obstacles under national law (including national laws transposing EU directives) concerning cross-border projects either through a European Cross-Border Commitment, which itself enables derogation from normal rules or a European Cross-Border Statement, whose signatories will need to undertake further legislative actions to amend normally applicable rules. Cross-border projects cover a piece of infrastructure managed by or a cross-border public service provided by a (mainly public-law) entity. The ECBM can therefore only resolve border obstacles for a specific project of a specific entity under national law, whereas the pilot may also address border obstacles under EU law.

Objectives of the call

The call should mobilise border regions that have already acknowledged and experienced market access barriers due to regulatory or administrative obstacles in the spirit of a bottom-up single market.

The call should lead to long-lasting structured partnerships of volunteering border regions, which eventually should result in the alleviation or abolishment of market access barriers for cross-border service providers.  

Focus areas of the pilot

Each group of applicants (the ‘pioneer partnership’) should cover two or at most three regions bordering each other and should identify one or more barriers they would like to address together. The ‘pioneer partnerships’ may also include border regions from EEA-States (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein). Examples of focus areas include

1. Posting of workers
2. Recognition of professional qualifications
3. Cross-border provision of (digital) services
4. Licensing and other related requirements
5. Insurance requirements
6. Marketing & advertising restrictions

However, this list is non-exhaustive and serves only as a point of orientation. Other areas may also be proposed if the identified barrier there persists on both sides of the impacted border region and there is a joint-commitment of the border regions to find solutions.

Activities of the pilot & involved services

The Commission will invite and give guidance to volunteering border regions to facilitate their out-of-the-box thinking to resolve market barriers.

Solutions to existing barriers might be found within the existing legal frameworks, for instance by using digital tools more efficiently but can also include further legislative actions.

Guidance in finding common solutions will be provided by the relevant Commission services in the form of exchanging good practices for the same barrier(s) in other border regions among others. Furthermore, they will guide the selected partnerships in the application of the cross-border mechanism.  

The Commission will also involve the SME Envoys from EU countries where the volunteering regions are located so that an effective follow-up and link to SME policy, in general, can be ensured at their level.

The outcomes of the joint work of selected partnerships might further be used as regulatory sand-box solutions which can serve as a basis for EU-level solutions recommended to all European regions.

The pilot does not involve any EU funding.

Eligible actors

Eligible actors of this call are pioneer partnerships set up by regional authorities with their peers in two or maximum three neighbouring border regions that are in charge of implementing the focus areas in question. Equally eligible are Euregios provided they have legal personality and any European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) representing a pioneer partnership.

These eligible actors should sign a joint commitment letter in which they agree on the focus area and the market access barriers therein which they wish to work on. This joint commitment letter should clearly indicate their willingness to find common solutions.

The eligible actors can also be supported by relevant business support organisations in their regions such as the members of the Enterprise Europe Network that can give further invaluable input into the nature of the market barriers reported by their clients.

Selection of the pioneer partnerships

The Commission will select up to five pioneer partnerships (set up by at least two, maximum of three regions bordering each other in each partnership) that should ideally work on three different focus areas referenced above.

The assessment of expression of interest will be based on

• Whether the pioneer partnerships fulfil the criteria for the eligible actors including the composition of the partnerships as to geographical coverage
• Whether the pioneer partnerships can demonstrate their joint commitment to work on common solutions
• Whether the pioneer partnerships can demonstrate the economic impact of the market barrier(s) in the chosen focal area

Application: content and deadline

The applications should be submitted in a pdf-document of 5 pages maximum and should address the following points

1. Identification of a focal area
2. Identification of one or more market barriers in the selected focal area
3. Description of the economic impact of the barrier(s)
4. Roadmap outlining how the partner regions intend to address this/these barrier(s)

The application should be accompanied by a joint commitment letter by the participating regions, clearly indicating their readiness to find common solutions.

Applications must be sent in English to: GROW-BORDER-REGIONS-PILOT@ec.europa.eu

Deadline: 30 October 2020, 17.30 (Brussels time)