Market integration in historical perspective

7 important questions on Market integration in historical perspective

The Spaak Report generated the idea of an entirely new kind of inter-state economic relationship as the basis for treaty negotiations. This report provided a blueprint for a single market in Western Europe, with which three main elements?

1) The establishment of normal standards of competition through the elimination of protective barriers;
2) The curtailing of state intervention and monopolistic conditions; and
3) Measures to prevent distortions of competition, including the possible harmonization of legislation at the European level.

Harmonization = The act of setting common European standards from which states are unable to deviate (either upwards or downwards).

Based on the Spaak Report, the Treaty of Rome (1957) aimed for what?

A common market by coordinating economic activities, ensuring stability and economic development, and raising living standards.

Common market = An economic agreement that extends cooperation beyond a customs union, to provide for the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labour.

Membership of the European Community meant more than simply a customs union, however. The Treaty established which 'four freedoms' as central features of the single market?

The free movement of goods, services, capital, and labour.
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Why were national governments receptive to early efforts to eliminate trade barriers and to create a customs union?

Because they were able to use social policies to compensate for the increased competition stemming from the market integration.

Yet even with these national policies, it was still felt politically necessary to provide some sort of financial aid at the European level to do what?

To ease the effects of competition through basic investment in underdeveloped regions, the suppression of large-scale unemployment, and the coordination of economic policies.

Thus efforts to create a single market in Europe have sought to unify what?

Disparate interests and market ideologies.

What clash that began in the earliest years of the European Community continues today?

The clash between laissez faire and interventionist ideologies.

Interventionism = The concept that governments involve themselves in the regulation of markets, through policy, rather than leave markets to regulate themselves.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

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