EU member states have agreed a program called Agenda 2010 which aims at making "the EU the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by 2010.

       I think that European integration has a great impact to its members almost in all aspects. Some information above explains the beginning of EU and its economic integration condition, which is one of the leading and most successful economies on the planet. Today 25 countries of EU became together to be stronger and to have competitive advantage in market place and in the world arena. Member states joined to be in union and to be in unison almost in each and every act. As we analyze past time we can see that they had conflict and war between each other. However, situation that we see today is phenomenon and it fascinated whole world as those countries created Single Market and new currency of EURO appeared in half of international transactions in the world. Mostly all states have adopted EURO currency as an official currency of European Union. Such achievement took a long time and much efforts put with particular stages that used by states to improve relationship and membership. European Union has achieved four stages and last and further stage is Political Union which is not achieved yet. This is last and most advanced stage in process. Stages of Economic Integration are explained below after explanation of Single Market.

Single market (Treaty of Rome 1957)

Many of the policies of the EU relate in one way or another to the development

anmaintenanceof an effective single market. Significant efforts have been made to create harmonized standards – which are designed to bring economic benefits through creating larger, more efficient markets.

The power of the single market reaches beyond the EU borders, because to sell within the EU, it is beneficial to conform to its standards. Once a non-member country's factories, farmers and merchants conform to EU standards, much of the cost of joining the union has already been sunk. At that point, harmonizing domestic laws in order to become a full member is relatively painless, and may create more wealth through eliminating the customs costs. The single market has both internal and external aspects:

The original Rome of Treaty quite clearly provided for the creation of a common market.

·        Called for the elimination o internal trade barriers

·        Provided for the creation of a common external tariff

·        Required the member states to abolish obstacles to the free movement of factors. In order to facilitate this free movement of goods, services and factors of production

·        Provided for any necessary harmonization of member state laws

The Treaty of Rome is one of the treaties that forms the Community of European Member Sates known today as the EU. The main objective of the original Treaty was to achieve a single integrated market possessing the following features:  

·        Free movement between Member States of goods, unimpeded by customs duties and quantitative restrictions;

·        Free movement of labor;

·        Free movement of services;

·        Free movement of capital;

·        Trade protection where appropriate against non-Member countries by way of a common external tariff, ie a customs barrier, so that the same duty would be levied on goods coming into the Community regardless of which Member State imported the.

In 1957 the governments of France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the Rome Treaty. In so doing they agreed to create what came to be known as the Common Market or, more accurately, the European Economic Community. That institution has remained the movement towards closer union and economic integration in Europe. It was course accompanied by the creation of Euratom and had indeed been preceded by the European Coal and Steel Community of 1951. *

                                  STAGES OF ECONOMIC INTEGRATION                         

·        There are stages which brought impact to the development of EEC. These stages came to existence after Treaty of Rome.

 Economic integration can take various forms and these can be ranged in a spectrum in which the degree of involvement of the participating economies, one with another, becomes greater and greater.

1.      The free trade area is the least onerous in terms of involvement. It consists of an arrangement between states in which they agree to remove all customs duties and quotas on trade passing between them. Each party is free, however, to determine unilaterally the level of customs duties on imports coming from outside area. It is first step toward improvement of economy. Several countries agreed to sell freely from one country to another. For example; NAFTA, OPEC, ASEAN and last is EFTA, which belongs to EU.

2.      The next stage is Customs Union. Here tariffs and quotas on trade between members are also removed but in addition the members agree to apply a common level of duty on goods entering the union from without. The latter is called the common customs, or common external, tariff.

3.      Next come the Common Market which is only one Common Market in the world belong to EU. Single Market is known as Common Market too, it has freedom in following;

·        Freedom of Labor

·        Freedom of Capital

·        Freedom of Persons

·        Freedom of Goods

And this technical term implies that to the free movement of goods within the customs union is added the free movement of the factors of production-labor, capital and enterprise.

4.      Finally there is the economic union. This is a common market in which there is also a complete unification of monetary and fiscal policy. There would be a common currency which would be controlled by a central authority and in effect the member states would become regions within union.  Euro is the official currency of EU. This stage is the further step in their stages for time being. EU has aim to include Political Union which is lies behind all these stages. However, for this time is not achievable. Once they gain it will carry a character of Federation of EU.

The Single European Act 1986

The Single European Act was a document signed in 1986 by the heads of state and later ratified by the parliaments of all Member States. It made the first post-signature amendments to the Treaty of Rome. The complete Act came into force in July 1987, although some sections took effect earlier. It was enacted in the UK in the European Communities Act 1986.

      The SEA aimed to provide impetus towards achieving the objectives of the original EC treaties, which were;

·        To transform the relations between Member States into a real European Union;

·        To achieve a common foreign policy;

·        To promote democracy;

·        To speak with one voice;

·        To protect the EC’s freedoms and human rights;

·        To extend common policies;

·        To facilitate the Commission’s exercise of its powers;

·        To work towards economic integration via Economic and Monetary Union (EMU);

·        To work towards the protection of the general and working environment.

Besides providing for speeding up the legislative process by introducing qualified majority voting, the SEA set out the common intention that the EC shall have as its objective to contribute together to making concrete progress towards European Union. *

Maastricht Treaty (Treaty on European Union)

   The Treaty on European Union (TEU) 1992 was for many the logical progression from the completed Internal Market.  This Treaty (known as Maastricht Agreement) marked a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, where decisions are taken as closely as possible to citizens. The TEU concerned institutional reform and political union, together with the necessary amendments to the Rome Treaty, extending majority voting and strengthening the European Parliament. It incorporated the principle of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), including issue of the single European currency and provisions relating to security.

Aims of TEU;

·        the promotion of an international identity leading possibly to a common defense policy

·        the establishment of a single currency in the context of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)

·        reinforcement of environmental protection

·        a fund to promote cohesion in the context of economic and social progress, including improvement in the quality of life

·        the establishment of common citizenship

*(The Treaty of Rome, Single European Act and Maastricht, Sixth edition of EC/EU fact book Alex Roney p. 14)

·        the facilitation of free movement of people, not forgetting their safety and security **

RELATION OF TURKEY AND EU

Firstly, I want to say that EU has some other official candidates which is Croatia. It hopes to join in 2009. Also, Republic of Macedonia has been given official candidate status as of December 2005 under the name "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".

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