single market
7.2 Single Market: introduction
The term the "internal market" is used to describe trade within the EU, intra-Community trade, as opposed to trade outside the EU (the "external market"). The internal market is, de facto, used synonymously with the "Single Market" and sometimes synonymously with the "Common Market". But the latter has wider connotations and has sometimes been used synonymously with the European Economic Community.
The Treaty of Rome (1957) set out the "four freedoms" that should characterise the internal market. They were: • The free movement of goods. • The freedom to provide services. • The free movement of persons (including the freedom of establishment, the right to practise a trade or profession). • The free movement of capital.
Even though the Treaty of Rome provided for the removal of all tariffs and quotas on goods inside the Community, many non-tariff barriers remained into the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s, one of the most important developments prior to the Single Market Programme was the ECJ's judgement in the "Cassis de Dijon" case (1979). It specified a new basis for the freedom of movement of goods, known as "mutual recognition". This principle essentially meant that goods in free and legal circulation in one member state cannot be excluded from others. The principle also applied to, for example, services and professional qualifications.
In the early 1980s, there was a heavy backlog of draft Directives and Regulations and the EEC's administrative procedures were suffering from overload. In 1985 the Commission was instructed to draw up remedial policies with a timetable for reform. The result was the Cockfield White Paper, which was produced for the June 1985 Milan summit. It identified some 300 measures and set the end of 1992 as the target date for completing the single market. The consequent