Eu Single Market

Border-free Europe (single market)
Although we now take it for granted, the 'single market' (sometimes also called the 'internal market') is one of the EU’s greatest achievements. Instead of being obstructed by national borders and barriers, people, goods, services and money move around the EU as freely as they do within a single country.
We travel at will across the EU’s internal frontiersfor business and pleasure or, if we choose, we can stay at home and enjoy a vast array of products from all over Europe.
No more national barriers
Most households in Europe are free to choose their electricity supplier.
To create this unified market, hundreds of technical, legal and bureaucratic barriers that stifled free trade and free movement between the EU's member countries were abolishedin a series of reforms, culminating in 1993.
According to the Commission, these reforms generated 2.75 million extra jobs and growth of 1.85% between 1992 and 2009.

* The single market is one of the European Union’s greatest achievements. Restrictions between member countries on trade and free competition have gradually been eliminated, with the result that standards of living haveincreased. * The single market has not yet become a single economic area. Some sectors of the economy (public services) are still subject to national laws. * The individual EU countries still largely have the responsibility for taxation and social welfare. * The single market is supported by a number of related policies put in place by the EU over the years. They help ensure that marketliberalisation benefits as many businesses and consumers as possible. |
 
I. Achieving the 1993 objective
(a) The limits of the common market
The 1957 Treaty establishing the European Economic Community made it possible to abolish customs barriers within the Community and establish a common customs tariff to be applied to goods from non-EEC countries. This objective was achieved on 1 July 1968.However, customs duties are only one aspect of protectionist barriers to cross-border trade. In the 1970s, other trade barriers hampered the complete achievement of the common market. Technical norms, health and safety standards, national regulations on the right to practise certain professions and exchange controls all restricted the free movement of people, goods and capital.
(b) The 1993 objectiveIn June 1985, the Commission, under its then President, Jacques Delors, published a White Paper seeking to abolish, within seven years, all physical, technical and tax-related barriers to free movement within the Community. The aim was to stimulate industrial and commercial expansion within a large, unified economic area on a scale with the American market.
The enabling instrument for the singlemarket was the Single European Act, which came into force in July 1987. Its provisions included:
* extending the powers of the Community in some policy areas (social policy, research, environment);
* gradually establishing the single market over a period up to the end of 1992, by means of a vast legislative programme involving the adoption of hundreds of directives and regulations;
*making more frequent use of majority voting in the Council of Ministers.
II. How the single market looks today
(a) Physical barriers
All border controls within the EU on goods have been abolished, together with customs controls on people. Random spot checks by police (part of the fight against crime and drugs) still take place when necessary.
The Schengen Agreement, which was signed by a firstgroup of EU countries in 1985 and later extended to others (although Ireland, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania do not participate), governs police cooperation and a common asylum and immigration policy, so as to make it possible to completely abolish checks on persons at the EU’s internal borders (see Chapter 10: ‘Freedom, security and justice’).
(b) Technical barriers
For...