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THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS



 welcomes the Commission's proposal for a Single Market Emergency Instrument to ensure the functioning of the single market, together with the free movement of people, in future crisis situations, as well as the proposed traffic light system with the three phases of contingency planning, single market surveillance and single market emergency for better crisis prevention, preparedness and management;

 reiterates its view that the free movement of goods, people and services in particular must be protected against crises; stresses the specific role of border regions for the functioning of the single market;

 calls on the European Commission to give partial priority to the free movement rules of the Single Market Emergency Instrument over the Schengen Borders Code in order to ensure the free movement of persons, services and goods in times of crisis;

 calls for representatives of the European Committee of the Regions to have a permanent seat on the advisory group and for local and regional authorities to be involved in the design of the central liaison offices and for equal access to national single points of contact and the single point of contact at EU level;

 stresses the need to clarify individual definitions in order to achieve legal certainty and make clear under which conditions and circumstances and in which crises the emergency instrument will be used; points out the need for a due process that guarantees the involvement not only of the Member States and the European Parliament, but of national and regional parliaments too;

 calls for a review of the necessity and proportionality of monitoring supply chains, of collecting information from businesses and of the obligation to comply with priority-rated orders; in times of crisis additional burdens on businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, should be kept to a minimum;