Untapped Potential Internal Market EU-28 – Free Movement of Goods

Our quantitative assessment at the Member State level identified two main
barriers of trade: barriers to FDI and non-tariff barriers (including lack of harmonised
rules and differential treatment of foreign suppliers). Under three different scenarios, we
estimate that the removal of these trade barriers has an intra-EU trade creation potential
of about a value between €183 billion (90% confidence interval: €88bn – €432bn) to €269
billion (90% confidence interval: €115bn – €433bn). It is worth to note that this trade boost
represents the potential additional intra-EU exports (in addition to the 2012 annual trade
volumes) with all barriers to FDI and NTBs removed with immediate effect at the
beginning of 2013. Figure 5 provides a simplified (non-scaled) illustration of the existing
intra-EU trade and additional effects of removing these barriers under the “Full Monti”
scenario.