single market for consumers and citizens

The graphic below, from the European Parliamentary Research Service publication, Mapping the Cost of Non-Europe 2014-19 (4th edition), illustrates how many billion euros could be gained from the pursuit of further integration. In particular, it shows that the EU economy would gain at least €183 billion if all barriers to FDI and non-tariff barriers were to fall with immediate effect (2013 calculations). The potential gains for the single market for goods are smaller than for services because integration for goods is quite far advanced, although potential remains for yet greater growth. This gain would be achieved in the long term because it is assumed that barriers would be lowered gradually. Removing both barriers to FDI and non-tariff barriers could help increase exports of goods in the internal market for all EU countries and more than 10 % for the countries that stand to gain most: Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia. Larger firms would profit more than smaller ones from removing obstacles to FDI, as they are often the first and main beneficiary of FDI. SMEs are set to gain most from the removal of non-tariff barriers: at present, companies incur fixed costs for every export market they enter in order to comply with regulatory requirements. For SMEs, these costs can be too high to make exports profitable. If one regulatory system applied across the EU, there would be enormous potential for SMEs to gain economies of scale: making the effort to comply once would open all other markets in the EU-28. The economic boost stemming from such a widening of opportunities for companies would lead to the creation of 2 % more jobs. Consumers would also benefit from an increase in supply, which should help to reduce domestic prices.