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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
  • News article
  • 29 January 2025
  • Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
  • 1 min read

Single Market Enforcement Task Force successfully addressed multiple barriers in 2024

In their fourth report on the Single Market Enforcement Task Force (SMET), the European Commission and EU countries present their work on making it easier for people and companies to travel and establish do business across the EU

In SMET, the European Commission and Member States work closely together to remove concrete obstacles to the functioning of the Single Market, thus helping to make the EU more competitive and resilient. 

Stakeholders are involved in all SMET workstreams, providing input on the most pressing challenges, possible solutions and good practices, as well as assessing the outcomes of projects. 

During the past year, SMET tackled several important barriers.

  • To support the development of wind and solar energy installations, SMET implemented a project on eliminating over 90 process barriers to permitting. The task force also promoted introducing good practices for clear information and deadlines, a one-stop shop, digital permitting, and tacit agreement. 
  • To ensure that citizens and businesses can make or receive direct payments from/to their accounts throughout the EU, SMET implemented a project on tackling IBAN discrimination in the public sector and telecoms.
  • Under one of its flagship projects SMET continued its efforts to reduce administrative burden for cross-border service providers by introducing 8 best practices. If implemented, these practices would significantly reduce administrative burden for service providers, while ensuring workers are still protected.
  • In 2024, SMET started a project to accelerate the authorisation of biopesticides. The current lengthy and complex authorisation process is often discouraging for innovative companies wanting to sell new bio-products in the Single Market.
  • SMET also launched a project to make it easier to open bank accounts across the EU. Consumers and companies often encounter difficulties in opening accounts in other EU countries, which is a constraint on their cross-border activities.
  • Another new SMET project from 2024 aims to understand how widespread practices related to territorial supply constraints are. This project will consider possible actions that could help businesses when sourcing in the Single Market.

Read this year's SMET report for more detailed information about this taskforce and its specific projects.