Overcoming European internal borders: towards a genuine single European market

Abstract

This article focuses on analysing the implications for European integration of overcoming the internal economic borders between the 27 member states and of moving towards a fully-functioning single European market. For examining the continuous process of eliminating barriers and reviewing shortcomings within the single market, an analysis of official EU documents and reports and of specialized literature on the topic of the European single market is conducted. As history has shown, the process of establishing the single European market and making it deliver at its full potential was a continuous struggle to overcome the borders between the EU member states. The analysis has pointed out that the efforts towards completing the single market are characterised by a mixture of negative (i.e. removal of barriers) and positive (i.e. creation of common institutions and regulations) integration strategies. Given the existence of both functional and political spillovers in the evolution of the single market, the neo-functionalist approach seems to be the most suited to explain the process of integration which takes place through the single European market.