The Internal Market

The name of the policy project that has been at the heart of the European integration process since the early days of the European Communities in the 1950s has not remained constant. Over the years, the term ‘common market’ — an economic term associated with regional trading blocs — has gradually been replaced in everyday usage by Single European Market, single market, and increasingly — and, since the Lisbon Treaty, the only name that is now used in the EU’s treaties — internal market.