Prague and London launch initiative to deepen common European market

The Czech Republic and Britain, who both decided to stay out of the EU’s fiscal discipline pact, are preparing to launch an initiative of their own: one aimed at deepening the common market. Prague says that this is the real key to economic growth at a time when the alliance needs to boost its flagging economy.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas, British Prime Minister David Cameron, photo: archive of the Czech Government

Prague and London may have decided to stay out of the EU’s fiscal responsibility pact but they are not about to be relegated to the sidelines of future EU policy-making as a result. They are about to come forward with an initiative which they believe would solve a lot of problems for the EU’s ailing economy – deepening and expanding the common European market –and they are hoping to get as many EU members as possible to jump on the bandwagon. News of the initiative, which is to be officially unveiled in the days to come, was confirmed for Czech Television on Monday by the government’s state secretary for European Affairs Vojtěch Belling.

“We believe – as do other EU members who will be signing up to the EU fiscal union – that the fiscal discipline treaty is not the key to boosting economic growth in Europe. The way to revitalize the European economy is to raise competitiveness and remove existing hurdles to business.”

Herman van Rompuy, photo: archive of the Czech Government

A letter is to be sent to the president of the European Council Herman van Rompuy asking the council to show greater resolve in getting individual members to implement existing agreements and further broaden the working of the common European market, which Prague and London claim has lately been completely overshadowed by the fiscal union and single currency issues. The Czech and British prime ministers have been lobbying hard for support and according to well informed sources the letter to the EC is to be signed by their counterparts from the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Estonia, Slovakia and Sweden.

Vojtěch Belling explained what the initiative hopes to achieve:

“We would like to see greater support for a single goods and services market. At present only about 40 percent of services are subject to single market principles –there are huge restrictions in this area - which is hurting not just the Czech economy but that of other member states. But this also concerns the sphere of industry, the sphere of research and development and many other areas which have been neglected in recent months because debate in the EU now centers almost exclusively around the euro zone’s debt crisis and the fiscal discipline pact.”

Photo: European Commission

While the Czech prime minister is not making any promises regarding the EUs fiscal discipline pact and says it is early days to talk about a target date for euro adoption he has been very vocal on the subject of the common European market and the need to remove barriers to free trade.

This is a foreign policy line on which the Czech government and Prague Castle are fully in accord. President Klaus – a staunch Eurosceptic, has long argued the need to focus on the single market and further EU expansion – rather than deepening EU integration, a process which he points out is fraught with problems.