Brussels Economic Monitor 2/2025: Single Market Stategy - Europe’s Best Bet in an Unstable World
Current facts and figures of the European Union visualized
Lesedauer: 1 Minute
2/2025: Single Market Stategy - Europe’s Best Bet in an Unstable World
As proposed by Enrico Letta’s Report and at the request of the European Council, the European Commission has put forward a "Strategy for a Single, Simple and Seamless Market", which focuses on strengthening and modernizing the European Single Market.
According to the Commission, a strong, prosperous and simple Single Market is the key to protect citizens and companies from unfair global competition and to enhance Europe’s internal value chains. This also includes a deeper integration of candidate countries as well as national policies aligned with EU-level rules and objectives. The overall goal is to have a modernised and digitalised European Market framework in place by 2030..
Trade flows within the EU and with the rest of the world
In % of GDP
Key topics covered in the Brussels Economic Monitor 2/2025:
- Focus: The Single Market Strategy
- Widening growth gap: Europe continues to lag the US
- Single-Market momentum has faded over time
- Internal barriers impose crippling trade costs on services
- Regulatory patchwork burdens intra-EU exporters
- External conditions for European trade are worsening
Take
The EU is caught between a rock and a hard place, facing prolonged stagnation and the loss of market access vis-à-vis its two most important trading partners, the US and China. However, there is a way out: doubling down on the Single Market as an engine of growth. This requires strict enforcement of existing rules and provisions, a push for harmonization, tangible simplification of EU legislation including the reduction of administrative burden, as well as serious efforts to integrate capital markets.
By reducing internal barriers, the EU would unlock the productivity boost it so urgently needs. This would strengthen the Single Market both as a buffer against short-term and structural drops in demand in key export markets and as a lever to compete with global economic powers at scale. Europe needs to fight internal economic fragmentation and bolster its own political unity in a world increasingly dominated by geo-economic mistrust, military threats, and social uncertainty.