At the end of the year, the European Single Market will turn 20. Since its launch in 1992, it has brought major benefits to European citizens and businesses.

For the Maltese, the EU offers businesses and consumers a massive market in which to operate. This means more choice and better products to choose from, bigger demand for Maltese exporters and easier connections with the rest of Europe, through easier travelling, cheaper roaming charges and study or research opportunities elsewhere.

More generally, the Single Market has transformed the way Europeans live, work, travel, do business and study. Think of the 400 million European citizens who no longer need a passport to cross borders within the Schengen area, or of the thousands of Maltese students who have benefited from study experience abroad, thanks to the Erasmus programme. Such opportunities were simply not conceivable for most of us as young men or women.

And the Single Market has opened up new opportunities for businesses to expand and become successful globally. Many SMEs can now sell their goods and services across borders, without specific taxes or other obstacles. They have benefited from common European standards and the possibility for products legally produced or marketed in one member state to be freely traded in any other. Trade between EU countries has risen from 12 to 22 per cent of EU GDP between 1992 and 2011 and EU exports to non-EU countries have also risen dramatically.

However, despite the progress, this is no time for complacency. European citizens and companies are still suffering the consequences of an unprecedented series of crises. EU unemployment has just reached 10.5 per cent, businesses face difficulties accessing funding and populism is on the rise across Europe.

The Single Market risks being the first victim of these sombre developments, whereas it should on the contrary be regarded as one of our main assets to help us out of the crisis.

We need to preserve the Single Market, and to use it as a platform for new growth in Europe, but we will not achieve this by simply resting on our laurels. We need to accept that the Single Market is not perfect and look carefully at how it works. We need to acknowledge that there are some flaws, gaps and missing links and find the best ways to make improvements.

This is the purpose of the package of measures launched by the European Commission in April 2011 under the name Single Market Act. It contains 12 so-called “levers for growth” and several key actions to make life easier for citizens, consumers, workers and businesses. And we have just completed it with 12 new key actions to speed up the recovery of the EU economy.

Networks are the backbone of the Single Market. We want to build fully-integrated European energy and transport networks, including a Single European Sky, which could reduce costs to airlines – and air passengers – by some €5 billion a year.

We want to foster the mobility of citizens across borders, with better recognition of professional qualifications and by the setting up of a true European job placement and recruitment tool.

We want to reduce the administrative burden for SMEs and help them access funding, including via venture capital, which today covers only two per cent of their funding needs, compared to 14 per cent in the US. We have proposed legislation to make it easier for venture capital funds to raise capital on an EU-wide basis.

We want to strengthen social cohesion, for example by encouraging socially-oriented investment funds and by giving all EU citizens access to a basic payment account, which has become essential to economic and social life.

We want to foster innovation and better protect intellectual property, for example through the creation of the European unitary patent. Today, protecting an invention in all 27 EU member states can cost up to €36,000, due to translation, administrative and procedural costs. Under the new system, costs will be reduced sevenfold.

We want to build a genuine digital single market, with a better and faster deployment of high-speed communications infrastructure and more efficient payment services. Today, 35 per cent of internet users do not buy on-line because they have doubts over payment methods. We want to change that. And we also want to promote a paperless administration by making electronic invoicing the rule for public procurement. This alone could save up to €1 billion per year for the European economy.

All these initiatives from the European Commission represent concrete steps to unleash the growth and job potential in the Single Market. We now have to ensure that our proposals are rapidly transformed into binding legislation by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

However, adapting the Single Market might well be a never-ending task, since new economic, social and technological developments appear every day in Europe.

This is why the Single Market has to be better connected to European citizens, companies and local authorities. All of them will have a chance to discuss our proposals and suggest new ideas in the course of Single Market Week, which will involve debates, exhibitions and other activities across the whole of Europe from tomorrow, 15 October, until 20 October.

The week will begin with a major interactive event in the European Parliament tomorrow with Jacques Delors and Mario Monti, in which all Europeans can take part online via the web.

A number of events will also take place in Malta. These include workshops for students, conferences and seminars for businesses (including one in Gozo) as well as a public fair in Valletta on Friday and Saturday (19 and 20 October) – a one-stop-shop for information about the different aspects of the EU's Single Market. A debate will also be held at the European Commission Representation at Dar l-Ewropa on Saturday.

Single Market Week is not a self-congratulatory celebration – it is a collective brainstorming about how we can squeeze the most growth out of this Single Market which we first made 20 years ago and which remains one of our best assets. Let us join forces to adapt it to the needs of Europeans and lay the foundation for new growth in Europe.

Michel Barnier is a member of the European Commission responsible for Internal Market and Services