Základní informace o stanovisku 

To position the Committee of the Regions in the policy debate on completing the Single Market for goods and services.
To convey the views of local and regional authorities on the key issues and the obstacles that need to be addressed for European regions and cities to fully benefit from the single market.
To try to influence the decision-making by the EU institutions on the inititives included in the Single Market roadmap.

Rapporteur Pastacci engaged in good cooperation with the EP rapporteur on the Single Market Strategy Lara Comi (IT/EPP). Both rapporteurs met in order to exchange ideas and align positions on several points of their respective reports. Rapporteur Pastacci presented his draft opinion in the IMCO public hearing (23/02/2016).
Mr Pastacci in his capacity as the CoR rapporteur on the Single Market strategy intervened in the high-level Single Market Forum coorganised by the European Commision and the Dutch Presidency, presenting CoR´s views on the SM strategy in general and on public procurement issues in particular, and specifically on the administrative obstacles related to ESIF chanelled through public procurement.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

 stresses that the Single Market is the EU's major economic success and has helped to increase prosperity and jobs. For it to work better still more economic and structural reforms are needed.; also insists that the Single Market, the Schengen Agreement on Free Movement of Persons and the completion of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union are inextricably linked;

 supports the European Parliament's call for the inclusion of the Single Market pillar in the European Semester, with a system for regular monitoring and evaluation comprising a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators, benchmarking, peer review and exchange of best practices;

– welcomes the Commission's announced initiative on the European agenda for the collaborative/sharing economy; reiterates the CoR's conviction that any hard regulatory initiative should have a sectoral approach and take into account the scale of the sharing economy initiative as a criterion for drawing regulatory lines;

– supports the Commission's intention to present initiatives aimed at reducing the heavy burden that VAT registration and reporting obligations put on start-ups and SMEs; welcomes the Commission's intention to put forward a legislative proposal on business insolvency in order to ensure that entrepreneurs have a second chance; calls on the Commission to provide better information for SMEs in a more accessible way through the representative SME organisations;

– underlines the importance of further opening up services' markets in Europe; welcomes the Commission's efforts to continuously assess EU countries' implementation of the Services Directive and carry out evaluation exercises ("peer reviews") in order to remove remaining barriers to the cross-border trade of services in the EU;

– welcomes the general approach set out in the Communication in relation to public procurement; notes that the implementation of the common framework for the provision of concessions is particularly sensitive in the field of infrastructural services (ports, railways, highways) and key to completing the Single Market.