The Relationship Between the Internal Market and Fundamental Rights: Strengthening Freedom to Conduct a Business in the Service of the European Union Economic Integration

Abstract

Originally called the European Economic Community, the European Union has evolved over the past fifty decades, with the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in 2000, to become more than a purely economic construction. Combining economic and non-economic preoccupations, this Charter not only strengthens the Union as a community of law, but also contributes to its economic clout with its Article 16 interpreting the Freedom to conduct a business as a Fundamental Right. Thus, while the Court of Justice of the European Union began to give priority to non-economic concerns over economic interests in the early 2000s, it is interesting to observe how the Court now understands the Four Freedoms in the light of the Freedom to conduct a business. By elevating “Freedom to conduct a business” to the status of Fundamental Rights, this Article seems to further complicate the relationship between economic and non-economic concerns. Article 16, which could be a new factor in the equation, could thus tip the balance in favour of economic integration rather than social integration.