Exchange of views with Commissioner Breton and the German Presidency
28-09-2020 - 16:04
On 28 September Members exchanged views with T. Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, on the Member States’ (MS) response to the COVID-19 crisis. The discussion focused on the lack of coordination of measures, imposing restrictions to the free movement of services and goods, adopted by MS as a response to the COVID-19 crisis in the last six months, leading to a lack of legal certainty and predictability for consumers and businesses, and ultimately to a fragmentation of the Single Market.
The exchange of views also allowed Members to ask questions on new policies, initiatives and tools to be developed by the Commission to avoid crisis situations and lack of coordinated action in the future and to ensure that measures introducing restrictions to free movement of persons, services and goods are coordinated at EU level and taken in a harmonised way, on the basis of cooperation between MS. Members also exchanged views with the State Secretary Dörr-Voß representing the German Presidency, on the different response measures, adopted by MS depending on their domestic epidemiological situation and on other factors, including economic considerations.