Access to Services and Services Markets

Services account for about 70% of the EU’s economy, 70% of employment and 90% of new jobs.

The Single Market for services is still incomplete – cross-border trade and investment in services considerably lags behind that of goods. The regulatory and administrative barriers are a major factor limiting the availability of services for EU consumers and businesses. Given the importance of services for the EU economy and the significant opportunities they offer for increased trade and investment, reducing barriers has great potential to deepen the Single Market.

The following sections provide indicators on specific areas of services.

Industry is a major buyer of business services, such as legal, accounting and tax advisory services. These services play a crucial role in the overall competitiveness of the EU’s industrial ecosystems. 

Barriers to accessing professional services markets

The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of regulatory restrictiveness on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive) for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption (the value of the goods and services consumed as inputs by a process of production) or cross-border mobility. These are accountants (including tax advisers), architects (including landscape architects and interior designers), civil engineers, lawyers, real estate agents, patent agents and tourist guides. The indicator is based on assessments carried out by the Commission and verified with Member States’ authorities.

In the area of professional services, the scoreboard shows little if any progress in reducing regulatory barriers to entry and exercise of professions between 2017 and 2021. In this context, the Commission issued country-specific reform recommendations in the communications of 2017 and 2021 (Communication ‘On taking stock of and updating the reform recommendations for regulation in professional services of 2017’, July 2021).

Legal services remain the most protected of the Single Market professions that are monitored. This has negative consequences for industrial competitiveness because EU companies (including SMEs)  allocate a significant part of their expenditure to legal services.

Source: European Commission, EURI database.

The first indicator refers to decisions taken by host country authorities (2023) on the applications of professionals who, having qualified in one EU Member State, apply for their qualifications to be recognised in a second (host) Member State so that they can practise there.

The second indicator measures positive recognition rates as a percentage of all requests received by host Member States from all other Member States for all regulated professions reported in the Regulated Professions Database. It sheds light on the role of recognition of qualifications for access to regulated professions by presenting performance by EU Member State. In general, a relatively high response and recognition rate indicates that it is easier and/or cheaper for professionals to have their qualifications recognised. Recognition rates vary between EU Member States and depend on several factors: the resources available to manage applications and the attention given to them; the number of applicants; and the regulatory complexity. 

Efficient and reliable postal services are a vital part of communication services in the EU affecting everyone’s daily lives as well as all business sectors. Other sectors such as e-commerce, publishing, mail order, insurance, banking and advertising depend on the postal infrastructure.

Employing about 1.5 million people, the postal services – including express services – are a major source of jobs in the EU.

Postal Services and the Single Market – why does it matter?

The aim of the Postal Services Directive is to ensure that affordable, high quality and efficient postal services are available throughout the EU. The Directive sets out minimum objectives for postal services and sets out a regulatory framework for EU postal services.

For postal services, the price indicator shows the increasing impact of digitalisation on letter mail. Prices for a priority letter in 2021 are 35% more expensive than in 2016. This increase partly compensates for the loss of revenue from falling volumes and higher costs due to inflation. However, the quality of service in the Single Market has remained stable on average: 84% of domestic priority letters reach the final recipient by the next day.

More information on postal services

Under the universal service obligation, Member States must ensure a basic postal service is available to all members of the public at an affordable price. The obligation includes collecting, sorting, transporting and distributing letters weighing up to 2 kg and parcels weighing up to 10 kg. Deliveries are performed at least 5 working days a week.

More information about Postal services.