Europe’s business leaders call for focus on ambitious completion of the EU Single Market

Brussels, 19 March 2026: As the 27 Heads of State and Government of the EU, the Presidents of the European Commission and the Parliament prepare to gather for the much awaited European Council on Competitiveness, they do so against the backdrop of permacrisis: attention has been distracted away from Ukraine’s ongoing and heroic resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion, by the crisis unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz, raising the spectre of another energy shock similar to that of 2022.

This serves to reinforce the sense that this Summit constitutes a watershed moment for Europe to transform itself and its fortunes. ERT believes the time has come for a dramatic acceleration in Europe’s efforts to achieve full economic integration, converting the One Market dream into a reality. This path offers the most effective means to defend and secure our collective interests in an ever more uncertain international context.

By taking all necessary actions towards full economic integration now, Europe could unlock substantial investment over the next five years to drive the clean and digital transitions, providing the material underpinnings to sustain its unique societal model.

By calling time on national obstacles, barriers and gold-plating and allowing a truly Single Market in goods and services to emerge, leaders can secure a potential annual prosperity dividend of €650 billion¹ going forward. The time has come to show the individual and collective political courage to deliver.

The Commission must present an ambitious and detailed One Europe, One Market Roadmap. It should dedicate and redeploy its best and brightest people to enforce rules in full: fast-tracked infringement proceedings should be accompanied by true harmonisation and the use of Directives should be abandoned in favour of Regulations directly and uniformly applicable in all Member States.

Inspired by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta’s reports on the untapped potential of the completion of the Single Market, ERT Members also call on the leaders of the EU-27 to agree extraordinary measures for extraordinary times, delivering on 3 further vectors of integration by 2028:

1. A Capital Markets Union providing the incentive for the hundreds of billions of our citizens’ savings currently invested outside the EU, to be directed to scale-up European start-ups and invested in European companies.
2. An Energy Union to accelerate self-sufficiency through clean energy at competitive and converging prices, ensuring a stable investment framework.
3. Connectivity Union through a Single Market in telecoms & digital, enabling scale, investment and reducing technological dependencies.

These should be accompanied by the following enablers:

• A 28^th Regime Regulation offering companies a genuine single, uniform set of rules for corporate law, taxation or insolvency.
• The creation of a Fifth Freedom providing for the free flow of knowledge, data, research, innovation and skills across Europe – a driver of the EU’s future competitiveness.

The time has come for Europe to seize this unique opportunity to take control of its destiny.

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Note to Editors:

A full list of the Membership of ERT is accessible here.

^[1] Increasing EU added value in an age of global challenges, EPRS, 2023

Find out more about ERT’s work to identify the barriers that persist in the Single Market, featuring stories, technical analyses and links to the Single Market coalition-led compendium of 100+ obstacles here.