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Monti: Reboot Europe through the Single Market |
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Monday, 17 October 2011 00:00 |
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Europe’s single market was never completed and key sectors including transport are hampered by national barriers, warns EU elder statesman Mario Monti. In an exclusive interview with the European Transport Forum, Monti – a former EU Commissioner - urges policymakers to refocus their energies on finishing the job they promised when they first launched the Single Market programme in the 1980's.
Mario Monti: "The EU Single Market is a grey area of thousands of small bits and pieces, none of which is sexy or attracts a high level of political attention.”
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Mario Monti seems naturally suited to be president of the prestigious Bocconi University in Milan, the institution where he first earned a degree in economics and management, and where he later became a rector. He is, to all appearances, a classic academic, with his soft-spoken, professorial manner.
But he also has a keen political eye and a steely toughness: from 1995 to 2005, Monti held two of the most influential positions in European policy-making, firstly as a highly regarded EU Single Market Commissioner, and then as an equally respected Competition Commissioner. And today, though he is far from the Brussels bubble, Monti is keen to deliver a stiff political message to European leaders about their unfinished business when it comes to his old portfolio, the Single Market. “The single market has never been as unpopular in Europe as it is now,” he says. “At the same time, it has never been so necessary. That is why it requires a huge political investment from the European institutions and from national leadership.”
full article
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