The new strategy of the European Union’s internal market

The internal market is the project that has been implemented in the European Union member countries since 1992. However, 20 years of its functioning does not mean that it has been fully implemented and is functioning without any obstacles and barriers. Furthermore, the changing economic, political and social reality raises new challenges to the effectiveness of the Single Market. After the first period of high interest put in this project, the following years were a period of passivity of the EU member states and the European institutions. Since 2010, the internal market project has been again recognized as one of the main interest of the European Commission. Innovative new business models based on digital technologies, improved production efficiency, increasing the degree of fusion of services and production and the emergence of global value chains create new economic reality. As a result, there was the need to modernize the internal market and to take actions initiating processes leading to the elimination of economic barriers, as well as more effective implementation of rules and regulations governing the functioning of the internal market, leading to strengthening the competitiveness of the European economy. Therefore in 2015 the European Commission has presented a new “Strategy for the upgrading the Single Market” with a comprehensive approach to create a deeper and more equitable European internal market with a strong industrial base. The new strategy shall be implemented in years 2016-2018. The aim of the paper is to present the evolution of actions undertaken by the European Commission since the implementation of a Single Market and the guidelines and priority areas of the new Single Market strategy in the context of the effectiveness of the internal market.