11. The internal market and the philosophies of market integration

Abstract

This chapter examines the nature of the European market, which the Treaties today call the ‘internal market’. It begins by setting out the three models of market integration - host country control, harmonized model, and home country control - each of which represents a very different approach to, or philosophy of, economic integration. It then considers how the nature of European market integration has changed in the course of the history of the EU. It argues that the original common market paradigm set out in the Spaak Report and incorporated into the Treaty of Rome gradually gave way to the single market paradigm first initiated by the European Court of Justice and subsequently embraced by the political institutions. Finally, the chapter investigates the principal tool the Treaty has created for the achievement of the internal market, namely Article 114 TFEU.