Every year the European Commission issues a scoreboard to assess the governance of the Single Market and its practical implementation on the ground by EU and EEA Member States. This monitoring tool called the ‘Single Market Scoreboard’ allows the Commission to spot the areas where more efforts are needed and use this information as a basis for future action.
As an advisory service answering citizens’ and businesses’ queries about their EU rights in the Single Market the Your Europe Advice is also featured in this Scoreboard. This service is managed by ECAS and relies on a network of over 60 legal experts who handle enquiries in the 24 EU official languages.
The Commission’s assessment of the quality of this service is very positive. Indeed, it notes that while the number of enquiries handled by this service has more than doubled since 2009 and the complexity of the questions has increased, the timeliness and quality of replied provided by the legal experts has been maintained.
The Scoreboard also stresses the stepping of the quality controls of experts’ replies and the good system of quarterly feedback reporting on the problem areas identified via the enquiries. Finally, the Scoreboard also highlights the improved cooperation and coordination between the Your Europe Advice and other Commission’s related information support services, particularly SOLVIT and Europe Direct.
For the future, the Your Europe Advice sets itself the priority to intensify the cooperation and coordination between the Commission’s support services in the area of the Single Market, to maintain the high quality of the replies, to improve the user-friendliness of the service and to explore the use of interactive tools for delivering advice.