MUCH MORE THAN A MARKET : SPEED, SECURITY, SOLIDARITY Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU Citizens

Much more than a market

The Single Market was born in a smaller world

The Single Market is a product of an era when both the EU and the world were "smaller", simpler, and less integrated, and many of today's key players had not yet entered the scene. When Jacques Delors conceived and presented the European Single Market to the world in 1985, the EU was known as the European Communities. The number of Member States was less than half of what it is today. Germany was divided into two, and the Soviet Union still existed. China and India together constituted less than 5% of the global economy, and the acronym BRICS was unheard of. At that time, Europe, on par with the US, was at the centre of the world economy, leading in terms of economic weight and innovation capacity, representing a fertile ground for development and growth.

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