On 13 April 2011, the European Commission adopted the Single Market Act. Based on a Europe-wide public debate, European Parliament Resolutions and

Council Conclusions the Commission announced twelve levers to boost growth, jobs and confidence in the single market. It announced a series of actions, including twelve key actions.

The Commission committed itself to delivering legislative proposals for the twelve key actions by the end of 2011. In line with this commitment, the Commission presented proposals for ten of the twelve key actions by the end of 2011. Proposals for the remaining two key actions - a legislative proposal on e-identification, authentication and signature and proposals to improve the posting of workers in the single market - will be presented in the first half of 2012. In addition, the

Commission has either tabled proposals for or completed 28 of the remaining 50 actions announced in the Single Market Act. In response to requests from the European Parliament and the Council, and in view of the European Semester and the Spring European Council, the Commission herewith presents a short report outlining the progress that has been made to date in implementing the Single Market Act. The report shows that sustained efforts are required by all European institutions to ensure that the proposals for the twelve key actions are adopted in time for the 20th anniversary of the single market at the end of 2012.

The European Parliament and Council committed to treat the Commission's key actions as priority. The European Council agreed that "all efforts should be made to ensure agreement on the twelve priority proposals set out in the Single Market Act by the end of 2012". To achieve this objective, the Commission recalled in its Annual Growth Survey 2012 that the European Parliament and the EU Council should fast-track the twelve priority proposals.

Ensuring that single market rules turn into concrete single market rights for our citizens and businesses will require additional efforts. This is why the Single Market Act includes a separate chapter on single market governance. It sets out specific proposals on how to inform citizens and businesses of their single market

opportunities, how to improve the application of single market rules by authorities in Member States and how to ensure their effective enforcement. However, as evidenced in this report, progress achieved on these issues has been mixed to date.

More efforts are required in this regard. This report is a European Commission staff working document for information purposes. It does not represent an official position of the Commission on this issue, nor does it anticipate such a position.

Read the Delivering the Single Market Act: State of Play document