A European Commission list of 50 proposals to revitalise the single market act will be reduced to ten or 12 “priority measures” to be presented later this year.

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, told a conference in Brussels on Tuesday (8 February) that the act needed to be quickly reformed to boost growth and create jobs.

The Commission opened a consultation in November, laying down 50 ideas to boost confidence in the single market act.

Barroso told the conference: “The time to deliver will come soon, very soon indeed. And we need to agree priorities, to focus efforts.

“This means choices. All political activity is about choices. And let’s be frank – when everything is a priority, nothing is really a priority, so we have to make some choices.”

‘Manageable list’

Barroso said that the Commission would work with member states and the European Parliament to agree “a realistic and manageable list of around ten to 12 key priority measures” that it would present in 2011 and which would then be adopted by the end of 2012.

The Commission estimates that the EU economy could grow by approximately 4% with a fully functioning single market.

Tuesday’s conference, which formed part of the consultation, featured Mario Monti, a former European commissioner for the internal market, whom Barroso asked to draw up a report on the single market, which was published last May.

Summing up the conference, Jonathan Faull, the director-general for the internal market, said a common thread at the conference had been the need for rigorous enforcement when member states breached rules, and the need for member states to feel that they were a full part of single market, rather than it being seen as a remote policy made in Brussels.