II. Free Movement Of Goods

Abstract

The Commission has spent time in 2003 celebrating the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the internal market. In this context the use of deadlines is misleading. The building of an internal market is more process than event. Many significant pieces of legislation entered into force at the end of 1992, but many pre-dated that moment and others again havebeen agreed subsequently. And the Court's interpretation of relevant provisions of the Treaty was not fossilised at the end 1992, but rather its dynamic evolution continues to exert influence over the process of market-building. The Commissionsperfectly well aware of this. It admits that the Internal Market will never be ‘completed’.¹ The core mission is to promote and sustain improved economic performance, not to hit crude targets. Nonetheless dissemination of propaganda possessesbase appeal in all political systems and the Commission has taken the trouble to emphasise the gainsthat have accrued from the process of integration, while also devoting attention both to remaining gaps and strategies forplugging them. In making its case the Commission is confronted by the unavoidable absence of reliable data on what would have occurred had the internal market not been pursued in the chosen manner. Sector by sector, it is difficult to demarcateadvantages accruing from the ‘1992’ initiative from those that would have occurred in any event or which are attributable to other factors such as global trade liberalisation. Moreover, the essence of the internal market programme is that benefits will be felt not only in the short term, but also in the long term, and accordingly, in line with Chairman Mao's reported refusal to assess the importance of the French Revolution on the basis that it was too soon to tell, measurement of the impact of the internal market project cannot yet be decisive. However, in its report The Internal Market—Ten Years without Frontiers the Commission insisted on demonstrably favourable macroeconomic consequences.² It highlighted price reductions and improved productivity. Its simulation results suggest that real Gross Domestic Product would have been 1.4 per cent lower in 2002 without the internal market programme. The level of employment would have been 0.86 per cent lower. Moreover further gains are expected of the former, though not the latter, type in future.