BusinessEurope joined the Val Duchesse social partners summit to give a fresh start to the dialogue initiated there by Jacques Delors 39 years ago. “We are fully committed to improving the dialogue between EU leaders and social partners as well as among the social partners”, underlined BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson and Director General Markus J. Beyrer representing European companies of all sizes at the summit. “For us, social partnership has to be an economic and social partnership. Social progress can only be built on competitiveness and growth”, Persson said. Unfortunately, the latest GDP data confirmed that Europe’s economy is stagnating and lagging behind our key competitors. In 2023, EU GDP grew by only 0.5%, compared with 3.1% growth in the USA. It is crucial that employers, workers and policy-makers join forces to put Europe back in the top spot to work, live and do business. - Read more (Photo © European Union, 2024)

"Today the EU’s Single Market accounts for 56 million European jobs and plays a key role in bringing the economic power needed to be globally competitive and achieve the twin transition", BusinessEurope Director General Markus J. Beyrer, representing the European business community, underlined at the high-level debate on European competitiveness and the future of the Internal Market organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).  "If all barriers to the free movement of goods and services were abolished, the Single Market could unleash €713 billion by the end of 2029", he said. This is a tax-payer neutral amount that could help investment in the green and digital technologies. However, over the last 5 years, the integration of the Single Market has stagnated, and even risks coming to a stop. European businesses are concerned that the mass of new EU legislation over the current political cycle was largely ineffective in removing existing Single Market barriers to cross-border free trade. - Read more