Brussels, 07/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - "The Internal Market has transformed Europe beyond recognition in ten years. It has created millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of euros of extra prosperity. It has dismantled barriers and opened doors. Europeans can live, study, work or retire wherever they like in Europe. Consumers have a wider choice of high quality products. Companies have access to much wider markets. Europe is better protected against economic downturns". This is the enthusiastic declaration by the European Commissioner for the single market, Frits Bolkestein, which he presented to the press on Tuesday in the Commission report on the tenth anniversary of the single market, entitled Internal Market: a decade without frontiers ". The report also looks at the areas which the internal market has not penetrated. Frits Bolkestein explains that in this regard, which is both realistic and optimistic, there is a crying need to make progress on issues such as the Community patent, services, particularly financial and public procurement. The Commissioner did, however, allude to the risks of market fragmentation during enlargement if they did not manage to respond appropriately and highlighted the persistent and significant price differences for certain products in Member States and attacked the number of infringements to Community regulation on the single market.
Based on eco-metric models, the report indicates that in 2002, EU GDP had increased by 1.8% - EUR 164.5 billion, thanks to the single market. Employment had increased by 1.46% with around 2.5 million new jobs created. During the last ten years, the single market was responsible for wealth in the Union to increase by EUR 877 billion. On average, every household has benefited by increased income of EUR 5,700. The Commission highlights that these figures probably under-estimate the total impact of the internal market insofar as they do not take completely into account its impact on the services sector.
In the corporate field, the report concludes that companies have benefited from new markets that have opened up to them in other Member States. Prices for a number of goods and consumer goods have converged downwards. Supermarkets are proposing a range that is always greater in products coming from all over Europe. Millions of people crossed borders to work in sectors varying from healthcare to information technology. The existence of a single market facilitates company access from third countries, which results in increased competition and consumer choice. During the last decade imports to the EU and exports from the EU have continued to increase considerably. The flow of foreign direct investments (FDI) was four times greater in 2001 than in 1992, despite the fact that 2001 was not the best year for FDI. The Commission is also keen to point out that thanks to public procurement that is more open and competitive, governments have already saved money, money that is now available for healthcare, education and pensions for the elderly. It considers that if its proposal on a new legislative package in the area of public procurement is rapidly adopted, integration of these markets will still continue into the future. The report points out that the internal market has been extended to new sectors over the last ten years and has most notably cased prices to fall in the telecommunications, energy and airline sectors. The Commission indicates that consumer and social protection has been strengthened and that if the European economy becomes more competitive, its environment will also become cleaner.
Despite all the success that has been chalked up, the Commission acknowledges that there is still al to that needs to be done, particularly in the services sector (70% of GDP and jobs in the EU) where there are still a number of obstacles that need to be overcome. This sector will be at the centre of a new medium-term strategy (2003-2006) for the internal market, which the Commission will be introducing in the spring. The report indicates that the macro-economic impact of integration of the financial markets is reckoned to be 1.1% of EU GDP at 2002 prices and is expected to be accompanied by a 0.5% increase in jobs. Another challenge: enlargement. From May 2004 the effective function of the market for around 452 inhabitants will have to be ensured. With this in mind, the Commission considers that "will be more strongly felt and be harder to remove in a Union of 25 Member States". The report stressed that in order to achieve the Lisbon objectives of making the EU into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, far-reaching economic and structural reforms will be required.