Till now

The European internal market, the world's largest in terms of the purchasing power of its 370 million consumers, has become a reality, strongly contributing to the prosperity and integration of the European economy: increasing intra-Community trade (by about 10% a year over ten years), increasing productivity and reducing costs (through the abolition of customs formalities, harmonisation or mutual recognition of technical rules, and lower prices as a result of competition): this has generated extra growth of between 1.1 and 1.5%, while bringing the income levels of different countries closer together.

- Particularly worth noting are:

§ substantial progress in completing the legislative programme: texts adopted have brought about the complete opening up of transport and telecommunications services, a significant opening up of other ‘public service’ sectors (electricity, gas and postal services), supervision of mergers and the protection of biotechnological inventions,

§ progress in the rate of transposition, measured by the percentage of directives transposed in all the Member States, which has risen in two years (1997-1998) from 65% to over 85% but has subsequently remained static.

- Some serious gaps remain:

§ essential legislative projects are still pending, such as the statute for the European company, full freedom of movement for persons, and tax harmonisation,

§ certain directives not yet transposed in all Member States include public contracts, transport and intellectual property,

§ the protection of business people from misapplication (or even infringement) of the rules still has room for improvement.

The requirements of European integration suggest that the internal market should eventually culminate in a fully integrated market on national lines: what might be termed the ‘ European home market '. Its features would comprise:

§ a single currency;

§ a harmonised tax system;

§ integrated infrastructure;

§ complete freedom of movement for persons;

§ legal instruments to enable businesses to operate effectively throughout the market.

As the introduction of monetary union is now in sight, completion of the European home market would require:

§ the harmonisation of indirect taxation, especially the establishment of an integrated VAT system based on adjacent rates from one country to another and the principle of payment instead of origin;

§ completion of the trans-European transport, energy and telecommunications networks;

§ adoption of the statute for the European company.

This culmination of the internal market could be carried out during the phase introducing the single currency, by 2002.