A New Single Market Strategy in the Making

In June 2025, the European Commission will present a new Single Market Agenda—ten years after the last one. This initiative follows a request from the European Council and was highlighted in Enrico Letta’s 2024 report Much More Than a Market.

Since taking office, the new European Commission has tasked DG GROW with drafting the strategy. In January, a call for evidence was launched, receiving approximately 650 responses, including 22 from Swedish stakeholders. Swedish Enterprise, along with several member organisations, was among the contributors.

Our key message is clear: entrepreneurship within the Single Market must become easier. We emphasised the need to reduce administrative burdens, overly prescriptive legislation, and micromanagement of standards while improving market control and oversight. Additionally, we stressed the importance of removing trade barriers to keep the Single Market open to global markets.

The public consultation of the Single Market Strategy primarily focused on the free movement of goods and services, as well as governance. In our response, we attached our recently published agenda and highlighted key recommendations:

Maximise the New Legislative Framework (NLF): Ensure businesses can sell products seamlessly across the EU without facing differing national product regulations.
Fully implement the Services Directive rather than revising it: Address the root causes behind the lack of implementation instead of overhauling the directive.
Strengthen mutual recognition and validation of qualifications and skills: Facilitate the mobility of skilled professionals across Member States.

Swedish Enterprise also underscored the importance of including free movement of people, given that access to skills is a top priority for businesses. We expect other critical aspects of the Single Market—such as the Capital Markets Union, energy, telecoms, and digital markets—to be addressed through parallel initiatives. Ensuring these efforts are aligned with the overarching Single Market strategy will be key to avoiding fragmentation. As discussions on a Single Market for Defence progress, it is crucial to strike the right balance between strengthening security and upholding the open competition that underpins the Single Market’s success.

On February 14, during DG GROW’s visit to Stockholm, Swedish Enterprise participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by the European Commission and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We reiterated our priorities and raised concerns about the varying national requirements for Extended Producer Responsibility, which create unnecessary burdens and increase costs for companies. Such discrepancies hinder the efficient use of recycled materials and delay the green transition.

At the Single Market Forum in Krakow on February 17, we were encouraged to see DG GROW incorporate several of our recommendations in their presentation on the call for evidence results. However, with months of work still ahead before the final strategy is finalised, Swedish Enterprise and our member organisations remain actively engaged. We continue to provide DG GROW with concrete business cases that illustrate the challenges and opportunities companies face in the Single Market today.