On Friday, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved the draft law for the guarantee of the single market. The aim of this law is to simplify licensing procedures and ensure the free flow of goods and services within Spain.
The cornerstone of the law is the system of unified licenses, which already largely exists and is well-known at the European level. This means that in the future, a permit, approval, license, or qualification obtained in one of the autonomous regions or municipalities of Spain will also be valid in other autonomous regions or municipalities.
According to the government’s estimates, the introduction of this system will lead to a significant reduction in costs for companies, as they will no longer have to address seventeen different autonomous authorities to operate in Spain as they have in the past. This effect is expected to have a considerable impact on the Spanish GDP, leading to an increase of 0.15% or 1.5 billion euros annually.