The single market: the arguments for and against.

The idea of creating a European common market based on the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is not a recent one: it was born in 1957 with the Rome treaty, which was supposed to achieve the common market in 12 years. The objective was to build a European economic power, to induce a better intra-Europe growth, which would increase the level of life of its citizens. But this ambitious project proved to be more difficult to realise than expected: in 1985, as the single market was far from being achieved, the Single Market Programme began, with 1992 as a deadline to complet…