2012 Volume 2012 Issue 32 Pages 29-52
In 1985 the European Commission produced its White Paper to the European Council setting out its programme for the completion of the internal or single market in the European Community by the end of 1992. This programme consisted of some 300 legislative measures needed to guarantee the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital within the Community. The economic integration was truly the most advanced in the world and epoch-making in the history of the European Community/Union. The European Council agreed to the programme and decided to revise the EEC Treaty by the Single European Act, which came into force in July 1987.
Before the market integration, the Community economy stagnated for more than five years due to lacking competitiveness vis-à-vis the United States and Japan. The single market integration stimulated international oligopolistic competition within the Community and beyond. The economic growth of the Community rose to more than 3% for three years from 1988 on. The economic structure of the Community was renewed and became much more competitive than before.
The single market became a fundamental driving force of the monetary union with the EMS. In the 21st century, it contained Central and Eastern European countries, developing the pan-European production networks.
After the world economic crisis, when the demand-side stimulation of the economic growth in the European Union has been narrowly limited, the re-launch of the single market will be an effective measure to revitalize the economy. On the basis of the Monti Report of 2010, the Union is going towards the introduction of the European Market Act, which will be agreed until the end of 2012 according to today’s plan of the European Commission.
The first single market integration, which was combined with the name of Jacques Delores, had a strategy to move oligopolistic giant companies of the Community. The second generation of the single market integration gives weight to socio-political legitimacy of the single market and seems to move consumers, workers or people of peripheral regions who could not realize benefits of the single market. At the same time, it aims to extract economic benefits from digital information technologies or other recent technical innovations. The single market is about credibility for market players including consumers etc. on the basis of hard competence and the Community method. If done properly, it can turn into a lever for higher growth in the EU following the crisis.
