Behind the term "scarce licences" are people

An entrepreneur may spend decades building a business. They invest, hire staff, build a customer base and create value. For many SMEs, that value is not abstract. The business is often their pension provision. They do not build up a pension through a regular employer, but through their company. The ability to transfer or sell the business later is therefore essential. If that transferability disappears due to temporary permit policy, an important part of their retirement provision disappears too.

That certainty is increasingly under pressure. Not because an entrepreneur fails to comply with the rules, but because municipalities convert existing indefinite-term permits into temporary permits. Entrepreneurs then have to compete again for a business that they have sometimes operated without problems for decades.

This is not a theoretical legal issue. Behind the term "scarce licences" are entrepreneurs who see their life's work at stake. They are faced with uncertainty about investment, financing, staff, business succession and pensions. This means the issue touches far more than just permitting.

This development is now visible across a wide range of sectors. Market traders, canal cruise operators, beach concessionaires, hospitality operators and coffeeshop owners are increasingly confronted with temporary permits, selection procedures and lengthy legal proceedings. In some cases, entrepreneurs are vindicated by the courts after years of litigation. In other cases, the temporary system remains in place, and so does the uncertainty.

Implementation conflicts with the Services Directive and the coalition agreement

That is precisely why it is important to return to the purpose of the European Services Directive. That directive is not intended to force well-functioning entrepreneurs to compete again and again for their own business. It is intended to remove unnecessary barriers for entrepreneurs and to ensure that permit systems are only applied when they are necessary, objectively justified and proportionate.

In practice, however, we increasingly see the opposite happening. The discussion shifts from the question of whether a permit ceiling is necessary to the question of how a distribution procedure should be designed. This creates more regulatory pressure, more implementation costs, more objection and appeal proceedings, and less legal certainty for entrepreneurs.

This also conflicts with the coalition agreement. That agreement focuses on less regulatory pressure, faster permitting, preventing national gold-plating of European rules, stable entrepreneurship, protection of family businesses and a labour market where offering a job becomes more attractive. Current implementation practice is moving in the opposite direction on several points.

If an entrepreneur does not know whether their business may still be continued in five or ten years, investing becomes more difficult. Banks become more cautious. Business succession becomes uncertain. The value of the business falls. Employers are also affected, because it becomes harder to offer permanent contracts when the government creates uncertainty about the company's survival.

Appeal to the House of Representatives

To highlight this development, the Bond van Cannabis Detaillisten has sent a letter to the standing Committee on Economic Affairs for the SME committee debate on 1 July.

In it, we asked the House of Representatives to investigate the consequences of the current application of the scarce-permit doctrine for entrepreneurs, employees, investments and business succession. We also asked for better support for municipalities in applying the Services Directive, so that maximum systems are only used when they are demonstrably necessary and proportionate.

We also asked the House of Representatives to pay attention to the tension between current implementation practice and the objectives of the coalition agreement, including reducing regulatory pressure, preventing national gold-plating of European legislation, creating stable entrepreneurship, protecting family businesses and making it more attractive to offer a job.

Ultimately, behind every scarce permit is not a file, but an entrepreneur.