The EU’s Single Market Strategy published todayat May 2025, offers a promising opportunity to reinvigorate Europe’s Single Market, break down barriers to trade, simplify the rulebook, and support businesses in the food and drink sector – but we would like to inject some urgency into the plans.
As Europe’s largest manufacturing industry, the EU food and drink industry benefits greatly from trade across the Single Market. In fact, over 65% of all food and drink exports are destined for the Single Market – around €360 billion worth of economic value.
Of critical importance for food and drink companies will be tackling national rules, often diverging from EU rules, which fragment the Single Market.
To that end, FoodDrinkEurope supports the Commission’s proposals to address the divergence of packaging and labelling rules.
To reduce complexity for companies operating across the EU, we urge the Commission to speed ahead with a proposal to harmonise the provision of digital consumer information for food and drinks.
We also applaud the proposal to introduce a Single Market Barriers Prevention Act, although we believe the proposed timeline of Q3 2027 is far too long.
We look forward to working with policymakers to shape a more robust Single Market which bolsters the competitiveness of Europe’s agri-food chain.
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www.fooddrinkeurope.eu
