“Services” Directive : interview of Stephan Rodrigues for e-europnews

Lawyer at the Paris Bar, established at the Brussels Bar and associated to the Lallemand and Legros office (Brussels), Stephan Rodrigues comments on the vote, by European deputies, of the compromise on the draft "Services” Directive. He says that "the promoters of the Directive wanted to treat services like goods and to consider all services without any distinction. It was a double misjudgment ". (Ref. 06150)

Through . Published on 17 February 2006 à 18h30 - Update on 20 March 2013 à 21h39

The draft directive has been adopted by European deputies on February 16. Have they emptied the directive of its contents?

The most adventurous provisions were deleted, but the objective did not change: improve the domestic market of services’ functioning. The principle of freedom to provide services exists since the signature of the Rome Treaty in 1957; it is even one of the EU’s fundamental principles. But the European Commission noted that this principle had not been sufficiently applied and was too often circumvented by Member States which, on the matter, have much imagination. On this report, almost everyone agrees. This explains why many provisions of the draft Directive were not a problem, such as, for example, the creation of a single counter  for companies or service providers in order to carry out administrative formalities in the host country.…

Need more info ?

Contact

mind's on-demand study service

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.