No matter the crisis, Europe’s response invariably takes two different forms. First, emphasise the need to integrate its single market; second, vow to release a meaningless strategy document. Occasionally, it’s both, a phenomenon known as the ‘One Europe, One Market Roadmap’. Announced by Ursula von der Leyen following a “strategic brainstorming session” last month, the Roadmap was originally set to be unveiled by the European Commission president at last week’s summit in Brussels. Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran quickly scuttled her ambition to present a “very detailed” plan to revitalise Europe’s anaemic economy, leaving von der Leyen’s pledges of “timelines”, “targets”, and “a clear limit of time to deliver” (which, apparently, isn’t the same thing as a timeline) unfulfilled. Unless you ask European Council President António Costa. Speaking to reporters ahead of last Thursday’s summit, he triumphantly declared that “today, we will deliver our ‘One Europe, One Market’ agenda, as we promised some weeks ago.” Standing alongside von der Leyen some fourteen hours later, he announced that the “agenda” had been officially “approved”. Compounding the confusion, von der Leyen said: “The Commission will soon present its One Europe, One Market Roadmap”, adding that the new goal is to “sign it and present it” at next month’s summit in Cyprus. So, had the Roadmap been approved or not? Or are there two separate documents – a ‘Roadmap’ and an ‘Agenda’ – one of which has been approved, and the other of which has not? And, if so, why did leaders sign off on the Agenda before greenlighting the Roadmap? No one seemed to care. Single market-mindedness Nor should they. For the Roadmap is just the latest in a lengthy series of increasingly nebulous Commission “strategies” for integrating the EU’s internal market published over the past few years. These include: the 2015 plan for “Upgrading the Single Market”; the 2020 “Long-term action plan for better implementation and enforcement of single market rules”; the May 2025 “Strategy for making the Single Market simple, seamless and strong”; and the September 2025 “Single Market Roadmap to 2028” – which, one can only assume (and pray), has morphed into the latest scheme. It doesn’t stop there. These strategies come on top of the 147-page, EU-commissioned 2024 report on the single market by Italy’s former Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The 401-page 2024 report on European competitiveness by fellow EU luminary Mario Draghi and the Commission’s mercifully short(er) 2025 “Competitiveness Compass” also both stress the importance of reducing Europe’s economic fragmentation. Despite this flurry of documents – or potentially because of them – stunningly little progress has been made. Another Commission report on the single market (yes, there are more) published in 2022 found that 60% of market barriers identified back in 2002 remained in place two decades later. A more recent EU-funded study found that only “marginal aspects” of Letta’s proposals on integrating the bloc’s energy, telecommunications, and financial services sectors have been implemented. What’s the hold-up? Member states shoulder much of the blame. Indeed, national governments are almost instinctively allergic to altering laws – especially in politically sensitive areas like bankruptcy, taxation, and employment – in pursuit of Europe’s economic and legislative cohesion. Workers, for instance, don’t want national labour protections to be jettisoned, especially at Brussels’ behest. Overwhelmingly, however, blame lies with the Commission. In a scathing analysis published on Wednesday, the European Court of Auditors found that the EU executive’s efforts to consolidate service sectors across the bloc suffer from numerous shortcomings, including insufficient rule enforcement, a failure to “identify and monitor” market barriers, and (no surprises here) an “unclear” overall strategy. Two of the report’s findings, however, are especially worth emphasising. The first is an overall “lack of ambition” among the Commission and national capitals to integrate the single market: an alarming assessment, given the sheer scale of the economic challenges Europe is confronting, from high energy prices to US tariffs to China’s growing dominance. The auditors themselves were at a loss to explain this fact. “I can’t answer why there’s a lack of ambition,” Hans Lindblad, the ECA member and the study’s lead author, told reporters. “That’s a question that you must put… to the Commission and to the member states.” The second, and potentially even more concerning finding was the Commission’s failure to conduct any serious assessment of what the benefits of market integration actually are – and, in particular, what the potential costs of market integration could be. Companies “like simple rules, but they also dislike very much volatility of rules, [a] changing of rules,” Lindblad said. “So it’s a trade-off that hasn’t been analysed, but which we think should be analysed.” Qui cares? But does this matter? Does the Commission need to conduct an assessment of the overall benefits of market integration, given that other institutions – including the International Monetary Fund – have already clearly demonstrated its potential advantages? After all, von der Leyen herself has repeatedly referred to the IMF study, which found that intra-EU barriers to trade are equivalent to a whopping 44% tariff on goods and a 110% levy on services. And who would dare question the Fund? As it turns out, Europe’s auditors would. The IMF’s report suffers from multiple “methodological weaknesses”, said Sven Kölling, another one of the ECA report’s authors. These include its choice of 2020 as a reference year, when the pandemic triggered a sharp contraction in economic activity – thus making market obstacles seem larger than they actually are. “I would be very, very cautious in citing this,” Kölling added. Fair enough. But what about, say, the recent study by the European Central Bank, which used 2023 as a reference year and reached broadly similar conclusions to the Fund, namely, that the intra-EU trade barriers are equivalent to a 67% tariff on goods and a 95% levy on services? Doesn’t this show that the IMF was more-or-less right after all? Delve beneath the headline numbers, however, and you’ll find the ECB drawing eerily similar conclusions to the ECA. The figures include “factors for which it may not be feasible – or even desirable – to eliminate… by policy actions – for example, preferences, home bias, and limited tradability,” the ECB noted. “As a result, these estimates likely overstate the true magnitude of policy-induced barriers.” Putting aside these specific studies, however, there is the more general principle that the Commission shouldn’t have to defer to external analyses when arguing for deeper market integration. “Obviously, it’s not enough that the IMF or other institutions do these kinds of analysis,” Lindblad said. “The Commission needs to do it, because it’s the Commission [that] proposes legislation.” Crashed and burned This suggests several worrying thoughts. Could it be, perhaps, that the Commission’s failure to estimate the benefits of single market integration results from its fear of what it might find? And, relatedly, could it be that the EU’s lack of ambition in removing market barriers is a consequence of the fact that, deep down, it understands that even a significantly more integrated internal market is no panacea for the profound structural headwinds – slowing Chinese demand, loss of cheap Russian energy, and general geopolitical instability – plaguing its economy? The Roadmap, in other words, might not merely fail to deliver an economically frictionless nirvana. It might also be diverting attention from the fact that Europe’s economy is driving – potentially irreversibly – into a dead end. Economy news roundup EU watchdog slams Brussels’ ‘lack of ambition’ on single market integration. In a report released on Wednesday, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said Brussels’ efforts to consolidate services sectors across the EU’s 27 member states suffer from numerous shortcomings, including insufficient rule enforcement, a failure to “identify and monitor” market barriers, and an “unclear” overall strategy. “There is a lack of ambition,” said Hans Lindblad, an ECA member and the report’s lead author. “There’s obviously a lack of implementation, and there could be, of course, a need for more legislation.” Read more. World faces energy supply ‘cliff edge’, warns ECB chief. In a speech delivered in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Christine Lagarde said that Israel and Iran’s recent attacks on the Middle East’s critical energy infrastructure show that the “likelihood of a quick normalisation” of the nearly one-month-old conflict is “diminishing”. “A further cliff edge is also approaching: global oil reserves are being drawn down, and the last LNG [liquefied natural gas] tankers that loaded in the Gulf before the war are now reaching their destinations, meaning the full impact of lost supply is only about to be felt,” she said. Read more. EU ‘not engaged enough’ in Southeast Asia, says business chief. Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council, told Euractiv that senior EU officials have failed to attend recent ministerial gatherings of the ASEAN bloc. This lack of engagement, he said, contrasts starkly with a push by the US, China, and Russia to bolster political and economic links with the 11-country group of rapidly growing economies. “We’re not turning up at the ministerial meetings when others are turning up, and it gets noticed and gets commented on,” said Humphrey. Read more. Eurozone activity weakens as Iran war rings ‘stagflation alarm bells’. S&P Global’s flash Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index, a closely-watched survey released on Tuesday, found that manufacturing and services activity across the euro area fell from 51.9 in February to 50.5 in March – pushing the index closer to the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the data “is ringing stagflation alarm bells, as the war in the Middle East drives prices sharply higher while stifling growth”. Read more. EU demands ‘serious reform’ of the WTO to stop flood of Chinese exports. Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade chief, told reporters that he will make it “crystal clear” during a WTO ministerial meeting in Cameroon that the rules-based trading order needs to be radically revamped. “We very much [will] be insisting on serious reform of the WTO, where level playing field, overcapacity, and non-market policies must be better tackled than in the past,” Šefčovič said. Read more.