From the creation of the single market in 1992, there's been 3 millions

jobs created and a general extra 2% in extra growth that has been generated.
Consumers have benefited it, as well as businesses. The main idea is to take
down the existing small barriers to make sure that consumers and businesses
can find a market place in europe where it's easy to operate, buy and resolve
questions or problems that may arise. Today, the internal market is
considered as one of the European Union's greatest achievements.
In order to eliminate physical barriers, all border controls within the UE on
goods have been abolished. The Schengen Agreement signed by a first group
of countries in 1985 abolished checks on persons at the EU's internal borders.
To remove technical barriers, EU countries have adopted the principle of
mutual recognition of national rules, recognition concerning not only the
goods sold in oher member states, but also concerning the educational
diplomas and job qualifications. Member states also agreed on a partial
alignment of national VAT rates as well as a taxation of investment income.
The European Commission, which is the executive body of the European
Union, and the Court of Justice, are responsible for ensuring that competition
policy within the EU is respected. No agreement between businesses shall be
found and no aid from public authorities shall be obtained, so that the
competition in the single market stays free, fair and transparent. For
example, Art 110 stipulates that no Member State shall impose on the
Product of other Member State any internal taxation of such nature as to
afford indirect protection to other products. Notably, that article was used in
a case where the french director of tax services imposed a higher tax on cars
with a higher horsepower rating, none of which was produced in France,
which meant that this tax was a sort of protection of national products.
The internal market is defined in Art 26 TFEU as an " area without internal
frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital
is assured in accordance with the provision of this Treaty". This article also
defines the four basis freedoms: free movement of goods, free movement of
workers, freedom to provide services, freedom of capital. The fifth freedom,
the free movement of payments, can be found in Art 63.
The free movement of goods is one of the corrnerstones of the Union. Once
goods have either been produced within the Union or are in free circulaion
having been legally imported into the Union, they can circulate freely
throughout the area of the internal market, where the rate of import duty is
same on all imports, without facing the protectionism of national market. A
definition of what a good exactly is has been given by the Commission in Art
Treasures case, Commission c. Italy. Goods are "products which can be valued
in money and which are capable, as such, of forming the subject of
commercial transactions."

Art 28 abolishes customs duties and charges having equivalent effect on all
goods and Art 30 prohibits the introduction of new customs duties. About
taxations, the main idea is that both imported and domestic products must
be taxed in the same way, at the same rate, and with the same conditions.
Furthermore, the quantitative resrictions on eimpors and exports and all
measure having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between states.
Nevertheless, Art 36 allows Member States to apply rules prohibited under
article 34 provided they are justified on the different grounds, such as public
morality, public security, protection of health and life of humans, animals or
plants, as long as the measures do not arbitrarily discriminate or are a
disguised restriction on trade. To illustrate this article, we could mention the
case where the ban on the importation of certain pornographic magazines
from UK was allowed by the commission, considering that this ban was not
designated to discriminate in favour of the domestic product since that type
of magazines was already illegal in UK.
Last but not least, the Rule of Reason stipulates that some obstacles must be
accepted if they relate to satisfying mandaory requirements. The Cassis de
Dion case provided for recognition of standards in different EU countres after
Germany didn't allow French Liqueur to be sold as "liqueur" because he
German law states tha he minimm percentage of alcohol should be 25% while
Frencg liquiete had an alcohol level of 16%.