EU countries have reduced trade with each other — too many barriers 0 8

This happened despite efforts to reboot the single market in the face of economic threats from the US and China, reports the Financial Times, citing a draft of the European Commission's annual report on the EU single market.

According to new data, in 2024, the share of trade between EU states decreased to 22% compared to 23.5% the previous year. FT notes that this is the first decline in the indicator since 2016, excluding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, the time required to develop and approve pan-European standards for goods increased from 3.2 years in 2023 to four years in 2024.

The share of EU foreign direct investment has decreased by 22% over the past five years, the report states. It emphasizes that "fragmented" national legal norms "continue to complicate and increase the cost of establishing and managing companies across the EU, with no progress to date."

Francesca Stevens, Secretary General of the European Packaging Industry Association Europen, says that Europe is losing competitiveness largely due to its own fault: "The problem lies not only in complex and burdensome regulation but also in a false ideological division between competitiveness and sustainability, in the mistaken belief that one can exist without the other."

According to the BusinessEurope association, external markets are becoming more attractive for European manufacturers than domestic ones.