EU steps up battle against trade barriers

Date: 16/11/1995

By Fiona McHugh

NEW steps are to be taken to knock down unfair barriers to trade in the single market, following a flood of complaints from businesses unable to sell their products abroad.

Member states' failure to recognise each others' technical standards in areas where no EU-wide legislation exists has been singled out by manufacturers as the biggest block to the free movement of goods.

Internal market ministers are expected to respond to that criticism next week by adopting measures which would make it extremely difficult for member states to keep foreign goods out of their markets. “This should help the single market work more smoothly by highlighting problems as soon as they appear,” said one diplomat.

Under the proposal, national governments will be forced to notify the European Commission of any plans to ban the sale of products made or sold in other EU countries from January 1997.

The aim of the new procedure is to clamp-down on member states suspected of protecting home manufacturers by strewing administrative and technical obstacles in the path of foreign rivals. Though member states are in theory supposed to recognise goods legally made or sold in other markets, in practice many do not. Businesses, for their part, often abandon plans to export their products in the face of baffling procedures.

One notorious example, is that of an Italian company prevented from selling its caravans in the Netherlands because, according to the Dutch authorities, the doors were too small.

Heights of caravan doors are determined by the average size of each country's citizens and, since the average Italian is smaller than the average Dutchman, so too are Italian caravan doors. The Netherlands, arguing short doors posed a safety threat to tall citizens, tried to block the sale of Italian caravans. But it was forced to back down after the European Commission intervened.

It is just this sort of referee-style role which the Commission hopes to play more often in the future. The idea is to nip problems in the bud without having to refer cases to the European Court of Justice. At the moment, the Commission must wait for firms to file complaints before it can act and often has to go to Court to resolve the matter, a legal process which can waste valuable time for businesses. Now legal action will be used only as a last resort.

The measures are set to go through the Council of Ministers despite initial resistance from France, Germany and the Netherlands, who argued the procedure would over-burden national administrations with red tape.

But the Commission rejects this, saying the new measures will act primarily as a deterrent. “If member states have to notify the Commission, they will think twice about mounting technical barriers to trade,” said the official.

Businesses have welcomed the move. Garry Parker of the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises said: “This will significantly improve the working of the single market and help small companies to trade more. It is very welcome indeed,”

Trouble-shooting agencies have already been set up in the UK, Ireland and Denmark to deal with complaints made by national authorities.