Economics sciences, foreign economic activity

Elizabeth Andrukhiv

Dnipropetrovsk national university of Oles Holchar, Ukraine

The EU Single Internal Market: main directions of future development

The EU single internal market is the bar of process of European integration, basic of economic power and political influence of the EU, its role in the global economy and politics. The success of the European integration project eventually depends on the Single Internal Market conditions. During the years that have passed since the single market creation in 1992, political elites and population of the EU consider it to have been established and that it needs just constant technical support.

In the context of such approach the weak points of the single market that have been revealed by the world financial crisis, began to be perceived as its systematic defects, that have substantially exceeded the level of mistrust to such market and generated the wave of skeptical moods in order to give a new impulse to the single market.

The range of problems of development and reformation of the EU single internal market is represented in the works of some Ukrainian scientists, in particular L. Polishyk, T. Kapluchenko, O. Reshota. Among scientific works of foreigners, in particular European researchers, it is possible to distinguish works of Dz. Arnold, M. Morgan, B Marten.

The EU Single Internal Market has become trustworthy support of the EU in counteraction to the financial-economic crisis and its consequences. However, the crisis distinctly designated some weak points of the single market, which is still characterized by certain fragmentation, unsatisfactory rates of scope of new sectors of economy, and also slow transformation on space of freedom and possibilities for all the citizens, consumers, small and midsize businesses. The single market faced the erosion of political and public support of the further economic integration of the EU. Changing attention from the single market has considerably increased in connection with the necessity of concentration of political energy of the EU on such important blocks of European integration as monetary union, expansion, institutional reforms. The idea of the single market began to lose popularity at that time when the EU really needed it.

The European Commission is convinced it is important to use any possibility, in particular to involve untapped potential of the single market, for providing of the sustainable economy growing and increase of employment. Therefore the European Commission appealed to the economist Mario Monty with a request to prepare a report that would contain recommendations concerning new alternatives and coping with existing problems.

In the report "New strategy for the single market: at the service of Europe’s economy and society" published in 2010 the complex strategy to the creation of the strong single market was offered [1].

According to Monty’s report, the Commission worked out and promulgated in 2010 a report "Commission priority, The EU Economy – Internal Market" that defined 50 potential priority measures for the "restart" of the single market [2]. And in the Act "Working together to create new growth" promulgated by the Commission in 2011, 12 "levers" of further development were defined [3]. These levers are:

1.     The access of small and middle enterprises to the financial resources  (possibility to invest the funds of venture capital created in states-members in any other the state-member without obstacles or additional requirements);

2.     Mobility of citizens (simplification of procedures of mutual assistance of mobile workers, revision of volume of well-regulated professions, confidence-building and collaboration between states-members);

3.     Intellectual ownership rights (creation of the single system of  guard of patent rights for as greater amount of states-members as possible);

4.     Consumers (an alternative settlement of arguments with the aim of creation of simple, rapid and accessible extra-judicial procedures to the consumers);

5.     Services (standardization of the European market of services);

6.     Networks (development and implementation of projects of the effective, highly integrated, environmentally save networks development);

7.     The single digital market (admission of electronic authentication);

8.     Social entrepreneurship (creation of the European structure of assistance to development of funds of the social investing);

9.     Taxation (reformation of the tax system);

10.  Social cooperation (freedom of founding of business, freedom of grant of services);

11.  Regulator environment for an enterprise (a revision of directives for record-keeping);

12.  Public purchasing.

However, it should be noted that modernization and deepening of the single market is a continuous process. The single market must always react to the constantly changeable world and its new calls. In this connection, in the report "Act in relationto an only market 2. Together to the new increase" 2012, the European Commission offered the second package of priority actions connected with new economy growth [4]. Four determinatives of this increase were distinguished:

1.     Creation of the fully integrated networks within the limits of the single internal market - networks are the basic backbones of economy, that is why the creation of the single transport and power market will bring a maximal benefit to the citizens and business.

2.     Assistance to transfrontal mobility of citizens and business – transformal mobility of citizens and business is the basic of the single market and the aim is the further encouragement of this process.

3.     Support of digital economy in Europe - a digital sector is the main motive force of both the productivity and innovation in this connection the aim is the single digital market creation, where citizens and companies will be able  to develop on-line trade without limitations .

4.     Strengthening of social enterprise, solidarity and trust of consumers that will provide an inclusive increase.

To sum up, the world financial-economic crisis and its consequences, and also the Lisbon agreement implementation, have become the powerful factors of paying attention of the EU to the problems of the single internal market. Aiming to give powerful impulse to the economy of EU, the European Commission has worked out and implemented two acts concerning the single market, where it defined levels that must provide new quality and rates of the economy growth.

 

Literature:

1.     A new strategy for the single market at the service of Europe’s economy and society: report to the President of the European Commission Lose Manuel Barroso by Mario Monti 9 may 2010. – Access mode: ec.europa.eu/bepa/pdf/monti_report_final_10_05_2010_en.pdf.

2.     Commission Priority. The EU Economy – Internal Market. – Access mode: ec.europa.eu/priorities/internal-market/index_en.htm.

3.     Single Market Act. Twelve levers to boost growth and strengthen confidence "Working together to create new growth": Communication to the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Region. – Brussels, 13.4.2011, COM(2011) 206 final. – Access mode: eurlex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0206&from=EN.

4.     Single Market Act 2. Together for new growth: Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Region. – Brussels, 3.10.2012, COM(2012) 573 final. – Access mode: eurlex.europa.eu/internal_market/smact/docs/single-market-act2_en.pdf.