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The European Union's (EU) internal market, also known as the EU Single Market, is a single market that seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people – the "four freedoms" – between the EU's 28 member states.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Europa web portal )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Internal Market )〕 The internal market is intended to be conducive to increased competition, increased specialisation, larger economies of scale, allowing goods and factors of production to move to the area where they are most valued, thus improving the efficiency of the allocation of resources. It is also intended to drive economic integration whereby the once separate economies of the member states become integrated within a single EU wide economy. Half of the trade in goods within the EU is covered by legislation harmonised by the EU. The creation of the internal market as a seamless, single market is an ongoing process, with the integration of the service industry still containing gaps.〔(Completing the Single Market ), European Commission〕 It also has an increasing international element, with the market represented as one in international trade negotiations. The internal market has been extended to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the agreement on the European Economic Area and to Switzerland through bilateral treaties. The EEA agreement and the EU-Swiss treaties have exceptions, most notably on agriculture and fisheries. These four member states of the European Free Trade Association must accept all rules related to the internal market without being able to vote on them. ==History== Two of the original core objectives of the European Economic Community (EEC) were the development of a common market offering free movement of goods, service, people and capital (see below). Free movement of goods was established in principle through the customs union between its then-six member states. However the EEC struggled to enforce a single market due to the absence of strong decision making structures. It was difficult to remove intangible barriers with mutual recognition of standards and common regulations due to protectionist attitudes. In the 1980s, when the economy of the EEC began to lag behind the rest of the developed world, the Delors Commission took the initiative to attempt to relaunch the common market, publishing a White Paper in 1985 identifying 300 measures to be addressed in order to complete a single market. The White Paper which was well received and led to the adoption of the Single European Act, a treaty which reformed the decision making mechanisms of the EEC and set a deadline of 31 December 1992 for the completion of a single market. In the end, it was launched on 1 January 1993.〔(News.bbc.co.uk )〕 The new approach, pioneered by the Delors Commission, combined positive and negative integration, relying upon minimum rather than exhaustive harmonisation. Negative integration consists of prohibitions imposed on member states of discriminatory behaviour and other restrictive practices. Positive integration consists in approximation of laws and standards. Especially important (and controversial) in this respect is the adoption of harmonising legislation under Article 114 of the TFEU. The Commission also relied upon the European Court of Justice's ''Cassis de Dijon''〔(Case 120/78 )〕 jurisprudence, under which member states were obliged to recognise goods which had been legally produced in another member state, unless the member state could justify the restriction by reference to a mandatory requirement. Harmonisation would only be used to overcome barriers created by trade restrictions which survived the ''Cassis'' mandatory requirements test, and to ensure essential standards where there was a risk of a race to the bottom. Thus harmonisation was largely used to ensure basic health and safety standards were met. By 1992 about 90% of the issues had been resolved〔(Europarl.europa.eu )〕 and in the same year the Maastricht Treaty set about to create an Economic and Monetary Union as the next stage of integration. Work on freedom for services did take longer, and was the last freedom to be implemented, mainly through the Posting of Workers Directive (adopted in 1996)〔Directive 96/71/EC〕 and the Directive on services in the internal market (adopted in 2006).〔Directive 2006/123/EC〕 In 1997 the Amsterdam Treaty abolished physical barriers across the internal market by incorporating the Schengen Area within the competences of the EU. The Schengen Agreement implements the abolition of border controls between most member states, common rules on visas, and police and judicial cooperation.〔(EC.europa.eu )〕 Even as the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009 however, some areas pertaining parts of the four freedoms (especially in the field of services) had not yet been completely opened. Those, along with further work on the economic and monetary union, would see the EU move further to a ''European Home Market''.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「internal market」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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