The European Union (EU) is the world’s largest economic and trading area. “The US has the world’s largest economy; in 2012 it produced $15.66 trillion versus the $15.63 trillion in the EU. In 2007 the EU became the largest economy in the world and held that position until 2012. ”1 The EU’s unique asset and distinct comparative advantage on the global scene is its Single Market, which encompasses over half a billion consumers and more than 20 million firms. The Single Market (sometimes called the internal market) describes the EU project to create free trade within the EU and to mold Europe into a single economy. It describes any area where people are free to trade goods, invest their money and move to look for work without facing legal, technical or physical barriers. The EU single market is designed to create economies of scale, allow the establishment of Europe wide commerce and enable faster growth by setting the same rules across the EU.
History: The Treaty of Rome (1957) set out four economic freedoms that it wanted to create in Europe, free movement of goods, free movement to provide services, free movement of capital and free movement of people. It was not until the Single European Act, SEA (1986) that a deadline of 1992 was set for the full completion of the single market. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty began the final Economic and Monetary Union which came into being in 1999. Since its inception, the on-going process of improving and expanding the Single Market has gone hand in hand with the development of EU competition policy. The Marketing environment consists of five sub-environments, see Appendix 1, each of which have an impact on how an organization markets its product. The competitive environment, one of the sub-environments, has a great impact on an organization.
Competition puts businesses under constant pressure to offer the best possible range of goods at the best possible prices. A competitive and well-functioning market is imperative for the efficiency of the economy. The reasons are various; however they can be grouped into two categories. First, competitive markets help correct distortions in the structure of production and thus raise productivity levels and secondly, stronger competition provides an increased incentive for producers in the form of lower prices, higher quality and increased variety. EU competition law arose out of the desire to ensure that the efforts of the government could not be distorted by corporations abusing their market power, without an effective EU competition policy, the Single market cannot reach its full potential. The European Commission, together with the national competition authorities, directly enforces EU competition rules to make EU markets work better by ensuring that all companies compete equally and fairly on their merits. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition oversees issues of antitrust, mergers, cartels, liberalization, state aid and the challenges of globalization. The areas targeted to monitor competition include consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, motor vehicles and energy.
Top Most Competitive Economies in EU: The EU is going through one of the most difficult periods since its establishment, with multiple challenges facing the regions’ policy makers. Some gloomy forecasts predict a lost decade for growth unless decisive action is taken at scale and speed to address the bottlenecks to reform that are strangling economic development. However, amid all of the short-term firefighting, it is critical not to lose sight of the fact that to address the underlying concerns in the region, EU must become more competitive. Competitive economies will be able to provide high and rising living standards, allowing all members of a society to contribute to and benefit from high levels of prosperity. The EU is not a homogeneous entity in terms of competitiveness. Large disparities exist among member states. “The Europe 2020