Single Market Strategy: A New Year’s Resolution Come True?
With competitiveness high on the EU’s agenda, on 21 May 2025, the European Commission published its long-awaited Communication on the Single Market Strategy. The message? One we’ve long championed: the urgent need to break down the barriers and fragmentation stifling the Single Market and to fully unlock its potential in today’s challenging context. Through a ‘renewed’ approach, the Strategy states its intention to reinvigorate the vision of a single, simple, and seamless European market by building on six key pillars.
And then there were the ‘Terrible Ten’
The first pillar of the Strategy addresses the so-called ‘Terrible Ten’, ten barriers the European Commission identified as major sources of fragmentation in the Single Market. Unsurprisingly, rules on packaging, labelling, and waste feature among these long-standing challenges, which range from overly complex EU rules to difficulties in business establishment and operations.
Zooming in on packaging and waste, the Strategy recognises the difficulties resulting from fragmented rules on packaging and labelling, diverging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes and barriers to cross-border shipments of waste. To tackle these issues, the Commission puts forward a series of actions aimed at reducing burdensome fragmentation and regulatory complexity while enhancing Single Market coherence, with the focus set on the upcoming Circular Economy Act. The former will further support the goal of fostering a more integrated and resource-efficient Single Market by addressing the use of secondary materials, EPR schemes, end-of-waste criteria and cross-border waste flows.
Is this enough?
Only time will tell… Delivering on the Strategy’s promises will require sustained effort, strong commitment, and shared ownership to deliver meaningful action. That said, the Strategy marks a significant step in the right direction, signalling political intent to listen and respond. At the same time, it will be crucial to maintain the momentum, as ensuring harmonisation across the Single Market will require coherence and alignment across both existing and forthcoming legislation.
What is clear is that our work is far from finished. As some Member States persist in introducing unilateral measures on packaging, including on labelling, we remain vigilant and active in defending the integrity of the Single Market.
WHAT DID YOU MISS?
April 2024: European Council calls for the development of a “new horizontal strategy for a modernised Single Market by June 2025”
03 - 31 January 2025: Commission call for evidence in preparation of the Single Market Strategy
21 May 2025: Publication of the Commission Communication on the Single Market Strategy
July 2025: Publication of EUROPEN’s Joint Industry Statement on Waste Sorting Labels, supported by 70 organisations
WHAT’s NEXT?
2025 - 2027: Roll-out of the legislative proposals and initiatives outlined in the Strategy