20
May
2026
Watch
High time to deliver on the Single Market, providing certainty and predictability for EU businesses and quality jobs (continuation of debate)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating in this Chamber on certainty in the single market for European businesses. Well, let's talk about certainty; the certainty that only four of the world's 50 largest technology companies are European, the certainty that real income per person has grown almost twice as much in the United States as in Europe since 2000 and the certainty that 72% of this gap is explained by a single word: productivity. And what has been destroying European productivity and competitiveness for 20 years? Guess what: bureaucracy, regulation, interventionism, ideological costs of its European Green Deal... that is, Brussels. And the reality is that while 3,500 laws are passed in the United States in five years, here in Europe we passed 13,000. More than 60% of European companies already point to hyperregulation as a direct barrier to entry for investment. And what is this House's response to this dire situation? More Brussels and more regulation, because, through their "One Europe, One Market" plan, what they are demanding is the same as always: more centralisation and more control. I mean, it's more of the same thing that brought us here. Ladies and gentlemen, you have been applying the same wrong medicine for 20 years: European workers and businesses do not need a Commission to tell them how to hire, how to invest, how to produce or how to compete; what they need is legal certainty, affordable energy, less administrative burdens and freedom, freedom to innovate. The only thing companies need from Brussels is one thing: to have their feet removed from their necks at once.