The EC single market and its effect on developing countries

Non-EC member countries in general and developing countries in particular have often expressed concern about the completion of the internal market by 1993. Various studies stressing the positive effects of EC integration on economic growth, structural change and import demand could not dissipate the fear that the EC would be tempted to shift parts of the adjustment burden to third countries by building a ‘fortress Europe’. This fear is based on an extrapolation of past experience with EC protectionism, and it receives further support from uncertainty about the stage of integration after 1992. There are a number of valid reasons for uncertainty about the future course of EC trade policies: The Cecchini Report (1988) as well as the empirical studies presented in the so-called Emerson Report (CEC, The Economics of 1992, 1988) focused solely on internal effects and neglected the external dimension. Differences in protection levels among individual member countries are still sizeable and there are disputes about the way to achieve a common protection level. The effects of liberalising factor movements and trade in services are much less easily predicted than integration effects in the case of merchandise trade (trade creation and trade diversion).(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)