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Nic Shuibhne, Niamh --- "Introduction" [2006] ELECD 407; in Shuibhne, Nic Niamh (ed), "Regulating the Internal Market" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Regulating the Internal Market

Editor(s): Shuibhne, Nic Niamh

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420338

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Nic Shuibhne, Niamh

Extract:

Introduction
Niamh Nic Shuibhne
It really has been some time now since 1992, but its potency as a deadline that
came (and went) remains strong. The internal market waits still to be
`achieved' or `completed', but it seems locked in a prolonged state of `nearly
there'. The Commission persists in its motivation of the Member States
towards this end, praising the compliant and chiding the errant as appropriate,
and its own legislative programme is proceeding buoyantly; at the time of
writing, its proposal on the liberalisation of services is dominating the market
agenda.1 When or if the internal market might be `completed' is anyone's
guess. But fixating on this goal rather misses the point as, whether
`completely' or not, a dense internal market has been achieved; it is up,
running and functioning.
The purpose and future of the European Union continue to provoke the
question `why?', especially within the current scrambling for a Constitutional
plan B. In a globally sensitised market debate, even the rationale for what
might have been called the `safest' EU purpose, the internal market, demands
renewed reflection and justification. The functioning of the internal market,
however, is much more about `how?' ­ how does it work and, central to this,
how and by whom is it managed? This collection of papers explores these
questions about administration and supervision ­ in its broadest sense, `regu-
lation' ­ of the internal market, from a legal perspective. It seeks to combine
cross-freedom, thematic analysis2 with this emphasis on regulation ...