Spain and Portugal launch a Strategic Competitiveness Forum in key step towards a single European market

The Minister for Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Cuerpo, and his Portuguese counterpart, Manuel Castro Almeida, after signing a joint declaration to create the Luso-Spanish Strategic Forum to Boost Competitiveness (Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la Bellacasa)

The Minister for Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Cuerpo, and his Portuguese counterpart, Manuel Castro Almeida, signed the joint declaration in La Rábida (Huelva) to create the Luso-Spanish Strategic Forum to Boost Competitiveness, a bilateral mechanism designed to progressively and practically eliminate barriers to business activity on both sides of the border.

Despite maintaining one of the most integrated and dynamic economic relationships in the European Union (EU)-with high volumes of trade, investment, and energy exchange-both governments acknowledge that several structural barriers continue to limit the expansion of their bilateral cooperation. These obstacles include divergent regulatory requirements, duplicated procedures, differences in certification and licensing systems, and administrative hurdles that generate costs and uncertainty. These challenges have a particularly severe impact on SMEs, which constitute the majority of the productive fabric of both countries.

The Forum is conceived within the framework of the Spanish-Portuguese Summit as an active contribution to the development of the 28th Regime at the European level, from the ground up and in close coordination with the EU. It is envisioned as a benchmark laboratory within the EU to deepen the single market through cooperation, regulatory convergence, and digital interoperability. The 28th Regime is the legal framework proposed by Enrico Letta, former Italian Prime Minister, and currently being developed by the European Commission, which would allow companies to operate throughout the single market under a single regulatory framework.

Unlike initiatives of a declarative nature, the Forum has an eminently practical focus: to identify the real problems that companies face when crossing borders and resolve them one by one. To this end, a Joint Monitoring Team will be established to oversee the implementation of the roadmap. The Forum will hold two ministerial meetings per year, the first taking place in the first half of 2026.

Roadmap: priority measures

The agreed roadmap includes, in its first phase, six concrete lines of action:

• Mutual recognition of professional qualifications: negotiation of a Mutual Recognition Agreement between Spain and Portugal to facilitate cross-border labour mobility.
• Common electronic invoicing: implementation of an interoperable B2B electronic invoicing system between companies in both countries to simplify transactions and reduce administrative burdens.
• Cross-border bank accounts: standardisation of documentation and enabling remote account opening processes to facilitate access to financial services.
• Interoperable public procurement: strengthening cross-border cooperation through a network of contracting authorities, joint tendering initiatives, and digital interoperability of national systems, in full compliance with EU regulations.
• Electricity interconnections with Europe: promotion of joint efforts to strengthen the energy connectivity of the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of the continent.
• Cooperation between promotional banks: strengthening the relationship between Banco Português de Fomento (BPF) and Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), including exploring a joint public credit rating system that expands financing options and cross-border investment opportunities.

Deepening the single market

The initiative is fully aligned with the Commission's objectives of removing barriers in the single market, strengthening the capabilities of SMEs, and promoting industrial resilience.

The bottom-up approach adopted-first addressing the specific problems of businesses and citizens and then scaling up solutions to the entire European area-aims to serve as a model for other pairs of Member States sharing a border. As the signatories point out, Spain and Portugal can lead Europe by example, building a stronger, more competitive and resilient economy for both states and their citizens.

Non official translation