Written question asked by Mark Garnier (Conservative) on Monday, 12 March 2012, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 14 March 2012. It was answered by Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 20 March 2012 on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

EU Trade

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what representations he has received on protectionism by (a) EU member states and (b) businesses in other member states.

Answer: We have not received any recent specific representations on protectionism but the issue does arise from time to time in European Council working group discussions and Trade and Competitiveness Council meetings. However, we are concerned that many barriers remain to a fully functioning single market and we are working with the European Commission and other member states to remove these. We recently had some conspicuous success with this in the January European Council conclusions. This, inevitably, is not a speedy process, but we are working to improve the governance process of the single market to ensure that directives, once transposed, are fully implemented on the ground.

Secondary information