the single market

It would be a tragedy if the attempt to save the euro were to put the single market at risk. Germany would not want that either.

The euro makes it easy to compare prices across 16 countries, and the single market allows goods to move freely within the European Union.

The UK, while sceptical about certain aspects of the European project, has always been a staunch supporter of the single market.

Its writ can trump that of national governments when the single market is thought to be at risk.

Such a protectionist measure would "run contrary to the single market and harm British interests" , the business secretary said.

Some German policymakers, previously sceptical of EMU, fretted that any repeat of the crisis would be a threat to the single market.

If the euro zone were to break up it would put huge pressure on the single market.

Digital firms should be able to benefit from the single market just as mobile-phone companies such as Nokia and Vodafone have.

European policymakers would be hellbent to conserve the single market rather than immolate it in the bonfire of the euros.

Today that dream has not vanished altogether, but the single market is under threat once more.

Even so, the single market is clearly not living up to its name.

Without liberal economies like Britain to resist protectionism, the single market might be endangered.

Continuing to enhance co-operation between national authorities within the single market is necessary but has proved not to be sufficient.

At a European level, there is concern over what all this means for countries' commitment to the single market.

In Brussels Mr Cameron tells the EU to beware of breaking up the single market, and stoutly defends free-trade rules that apply to all.

More frequent border checks would merely be an inconvenience, slightly gritting up the single market.

He may have briefly basked in his backbenchers' praise, but if his aim was to protect the City and the single market, he has failed.

The problem is particularly acute in Europe, where the single market's rules allow banks to do business freely across borders.

From the earliest days of the single market, EU leaders have attempted to square this circle by presenting the project as a grand bargain.

Economists reckon that the single market has increased growth, albeit by less than promised.

Another problem is that the single market is far from complete, so that competition does not even out price differences across the EU.

It shows how important the information society is to the European Community, and how it fits into the single market framework.

The creation of the single market involved a huge expansion of European law and therefore deep erosions of national sovereignty.

This advice will chafe most in the European Union, where standard rules are the basis of the single market.

The collapse of the single market, which has done more than anything else to knit Europe together, would threaten the EU itself.

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was supposed to banish the competitive devaluations that threatened the single market in the early 1990s.

A rider to the act sketched out an ambition to complement the single market with a single currency.

We all share the single market, but otherwise coexist in a framework of flexible and variable geometry.

This means, above all, safeguarding the single market and its competition rules.

But the alternative may be the collapse of not just the single currency but the single market and the whole European project.

Along with this comes a second task: to preserve the single market, by far the EU's greatest achievement of recent years.

Had it not resisted protectionist measures in the crisis, say officials, the single market would have collapsed.

But the truth is that the EU's eastward enlargement brought globalisation inside the borders of the single market.

Indeed there are other signs that member states have fallen out of love with the single market concept.

The single market is already under attack from several governments, as is the notion of admitting Turkey to the club.

The euro's critics forget that the single market has never co-existed with freely floating exchange rates.

When the single market was built in the late 1980s, the EU already had an exchange-rate mechanism (ERM) limiting currency movements.

The second school of thought thinks even low-cost membership of the single market is a bad deal.

We could sustain the single market, underpinned by institutions that match the integration of financial firms.

Shared interests, be it in terms of the single market or single currency, should hopefully prevail, and make the EDRM more realistic.

To that extent, the liberal argument for the single market is won.

The single market and the EU's competition and state-aid rules are under attack as national governments look for ways to protect jobs.

A report on strengthening the single market by Mario Monti, a former EU commissioner, was issued on May 10th.

The new club's 17 members could still force through big changes to the single market if they acted as a bloc.

Finally, there is a consensus that Europe's wobbling faith in the single market has come at a perilous moment.

A poll of 1, 000 British bosses found that 54% thought the cost of red tape outweighed the benefits of the single market.

The more the single market fragments, the more likely is Britain to disengage from the EU.

But the "single market" remains incomplete and faces new threats.

It is also a step towards the single market that ASEAN is supposed to turn into by 2015.

On October 27th Mr Barnier unveiled 50 proposals to relaunch the single market, including the promotion of internet commerce.

It is these four freedoms which form the basis of the single market.

Today the crisis has given Europe's leaders the chance to create their own coalition for reform, focused again on the single market.

The single market is perhaps the EU's biggest achievement.

The biggest danger is that the euro crisis will lead to a two-speed Europe that fractures the single market.

The single market remains half-built.

The country would, as a result, probably be excluded from the single market, too.

But for Michel Barnier, the internal-market commissioner, the single market is both "more and more necessary, and less and less popular" .

Mr Cameron must now find a way to restore the UK's influence over the single market.

The completion of the single market was set in train only in the 1980s and remains a work in progress.

The euro was meant to underpin the single market, but it may end up undermining it

could bring about a catastrophic break-up of the single market