EU Market, Timeline & Harmonization

EU Market Timeline:
1. The European Community (1957)
2. Schengen Visa area (1985)
3. Unified European Market (1992)
4. “New Approach” (1985,1989,1993 & 2010)
5. The Euro born (2002)

The previous EU market was very fragmented with differences in regulations, languages, currencies, market systems and passport areas which made trade difficult and expensive.

Between 1985 and 1993 the European Commission issued what are referred to today as the “European New Approach Directives” in an effort to harmonize & unify the European market.

The Directives are issued by the European Commission giving the Direction (hence their name, “Directive”) of the Commission to the EU member states – all Directives are to be transposed by all member states as National Laws in their own Parliaments; during which process, each EU member state may not extract requirements from the Directive but may add requirements to be enforced in their own territories – hence, creating different implementations of the Directive (such as language requirements). As a result, Europe is slowly moving towards Regulations to replace the Directives – Regulations are EU laws issued by the Commission which are directly applicable in the European Union and do not require to be transposed by the member states parliaments.

27 EU Member States & 4 EFTA countries :
The 27 EU member states & the 4 EFTA countries form what is referred to as the EEA – the European Economic Area. Here below, are the EEA states listed (see map):

- EU states: Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Luxemburg
- EU states joined on May 2004: Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia
- EU states joined on January 2007: Bulgaria &  Romania
- EFTA Countries: Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Lichtenstein

Last updated Mar 12, 2012

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