The turbulence of the pandemic has another legislative aftermath in Brussels. The Commission proposes that in extreme situations it can in future force companies to produce certain products.
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wants to prevent the collapse of the EU internal market.
Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner from France, has a new emergency instrument on Monday presentedwith which Brussels wants to prevent the collapse of the internal market in future crisis situations.
prevent border closures
You have to anticipate, said Breton. What he means by this is, in principle, to prepare for the recent catastrophe. In Brussels, people look back with some shudder to the time when EU member states began to close their borders at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic and no longer let products out of the country. Added to this was the trouble with missing masks, missing ventilators and then the bumpy start to vaccine procurement.
Breton is also once again caught in the misconception that officials in Brussels know best what to do in an emergency. This is by no means a planned economy, said EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Breton also rejected similar allegations to the media on Monday that the initiative was the opposite of a planned economy. But the proposals speak a different language.
If a kind of emergency mode has been activated, the Commission should be able to force companies to release certain information. Brussels would then like to oblige companies to “accept priority orders for crisis-related products”. In other words, the Commission wants to be able to decide which products a company located in the EU has to manufacture. The company either has to comply or to present the “serious reasons” for a refusal.
With this bill, the Commission wants to prevent goods, services and people from being unable to cross the border in a future crisis and thus preventing the common internal market from collapsing. To this end, Brussels is proposing a three-stage approach in the event of a crisis, starting with a “contingency mode”, followed by the “monitoring mode” and finally the “emergency mode”.
Brussels wants more powers in the event of a crisis
In the first stage, the Commission and the Member States are to set up a coordination and communication network for increased preparedness. If the Commission then identifies a “threat to the internal market”, it can activate the monitoring mode. Brussels and countries would monitor supply chains for certain goods and services and build up strategic reserves, such as masks and ventilators.
The stage at which the most far-reaching interventions such as the production regulations mentioned are possible must ultimately be proclaimed by the Council of the 27 member states. In emergency mode, there would be a blacklist of restrictions that countries were not allowed to take. A closing of the borders should be considered here. The Commission would quickly examine unilateral restrictions by member states.
Brussels would then be able to recommend countries to secure goods through the expansion or rededication of production lines or accelerated approval processes, as the Commission writes. Furthermore, President Ursula von der Leyen’s committee would also act as a central buyer, as was the case with vaccines during the Covid 19 crisis.
However, in order to force companies to manufacture certain products, a separate activation would be necessary again. Furthermore, tests, approvals and conformity assessments should then be issued more quickly in order to make goods available quickly. The approval of vaccines should be considered here.
So Brussels would like to have more power and more room for maneuver in future crises. The Council of the 27 EU Member States and the EU Parliament are now discussing whether it will receive this. If they agree to the regulations, the new rules should come into force twenty days after their publication in the EU Official Journal.