Barriers for service providers in the EU internal market

Abstract

The free provision of services in the European Internal Market is still being prevented from coming into fruition by serious obstacles. The crucial step to the elimination of barriers and liberalization of market access for service providers was to be the implementation of the Services Directive in 2009. However, the provision of services across the EU is still subject to restrictions stemming mostly from differences in the Member States’ national regulations and, therefore, service providers cannot exploit the potential of the EU Internal Market to the full extent. The aim of the paper is to identify barriers preventing service providers from free access to the European Internal Market and to present the most important ones. The paper is based on an analysis of the literature, especially of documents and reports of the EU institutions and other European research bodies. The obstacles facing service providers in the European Internal Market are mainly of a regulatory nature. The most significant ones include differences in legislation and a lack of initiative to simplify it, problems with access to information, differences in the recognitionm of qualifications resulting in restrictions on access to service activities, divergent and disproportionate regulations of service professions and, last but not least, problems with civil liability insurance for service providers.