The obscene cost of doing business in the EU - PublicServiceEurope.com

Curiously, there seems to be little pressure for an effective single market in services - just complaints about its absence. Can the European Commission step in? And do we want it to? Our resident satirist Schadenfreude considers these questions and more

Some say that the European Union does too much, including what it does wrong. One thing it could readily stop doing is its concern with fundamental rights - on which it has a document with a text of 50 articles unnecessarily. Human rights can be left to the Council of Europe and others. For example, the EU duplicates and causes confusion when it is erroneously criticised for something the European Court of Human Rights has done.

The EU now wants to get into foreign policy and defence. These are pipe dreams. There is little consensus across member state foreign policies and any that were Europeanised would be feeble compromises. It tends to be forgotten that it is in the nature of much of what the EU decides to be a zero -sum game.

As to defence. Why compete with, and undermine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation? The main area of inactivity is in the completion of the common market in services. Service providers are still largely subject to national and even local rules.

Citizens would not normally think of taking out, say, life insurance with a company which does not have a local base. But opening a branch and doing business from it is said to be nightmare-ish. The promoters need multiple consents and licences with central and local tax authorities, health and safety agencies, environmental controls, planning authorities, fire services, national employment laws and local trade union requirements – in addition to immigration authorities, if they employ non-EU citizens.

Admittedly, they face the same requirements when they first open in their home countries but that is one off. When they go into the rest of Europe, the rules are disparate and costly in management time as well as in cash terms. It is obscene. To harmonise would be a mammoth task. However, so was the single market in goods. Curiously, there seems to be little pressure for an effective single market in services - just complaints about its absence. Can the European Commission step in? And do we want it to? Those are the questions of the day.