Governments of the Member States of the European Union have regularly reminded their respective nationals about the new opportunities they have acquired through membership in the enlarged EU, which boasts of an internal market of more than 450 million people.
The Maltese government is no exception and during the past years has informed the public, independent of their political beliefs, of the opportunities of membership in the EU and the rights that can be enjoyed as a member of this enormous internal market.
However, the legal framework of the EU is made up of hundreds of legal acts and it is virtually impossible to ensure that all the provisions of these acts are applied correctly by all public administrations of all Member States at all times.
The European Commission, being fully aware of these potential problems for EU nationals, who act on the advice of their governments and grab the opportunity to exercise their internal market rights in another member state, acted immediately by creating a tool intended to solve problems submitted by citizens and businesses rapidly and pragmatically and without cost.
SOLVIT is an on-line network, created by the European Commission and the member states, with the aim of solving problems that arise for individual citizens and businesses from the wrong application of internal market law by a public administration of another member state.
Since its birth in 2002, the network solved approximately 80 per cent of the cases it received, and in the process started a new concept in problem-solving: arriving at workable solutions by negotiating and thus avoiding long and costly formal, sometimes legal, procedures.
As from the accession date in May last year, Malta became a member in the SOLVIT network as well. Since then The Malta SOLVIT Centre was set up at the Commerce Division in Lascaris, Valletta. The centre, which is effectively operated by the Small Businesses and Crafts Directorate, can help you if public administration in another member state creates a problem for you through the wrong application of any internal market law in respect of your request to exercise your internal market rights, being it to work, to study, to travel, to trade, offer a service or any other area.
To date, the centre received 46 requests from citizens and businesses. Out of these cases four qualified as SOLVIT cases and as a result Malta acted as Home Centre (cases taken against other Member States). Malta acted as Lead Centre (cases coming from other Member States) in four other cases. I believe, however, that the SOLVIT Centre in Malta should be used more extensively to solve EU internal market problems.
The centre is concentrating on promotional campaigns to widen its client base. It followed the recommendation of the SOLVIT Team in DG Internal Market and came up with a promotional plan for the months July to December 2005 in which it endeavours to promote the services of SOLVIT to Maltese citizens and businesses.
Contacts were also made with a number of organisations to register them as associated bodies. This would allow these organisations to submit cases pertaining to their members directly in the SOLVIT Database and help to promote SOLVIT to its members. To date the Maltese centre has 12 associated bodies registered. Besides that, various contacts have taken place with the five Maltese Members of the European Parliament.
Anyone encountering problems related to the EU internal market should visit the Malta SOLVIT Centre at the Commerce Division or email at: [email protected] .For more information you can visit the site: www.europa.eu.int/solvit
Censu Galea is Competitiveness and Communications Minister