
Regulating for a sustainable and resilient single market
2 February 2023
Summary
The single market currently sits at the centre of the European economic integration project and plays a key role in the EU processes of political and social integration.This centrality would have been purely totemic had it not been for the inherent success and resilience of the European integration project. Over the past 30 years, the single market has survived several crises largely unscathed: economic ones (including various recessions and austerity-driven downturns), political ones (Brexit comes immediately to mind) and, more recently, a pandemic and a violent armed conflict virtually on its doorstep. While undoubtedly still a ‘project’, and far from being fully accomplished let alone finalised, the single market has consolidated its role as the central Weltanschauung of the European Union.