The "Single Market" 單一市場

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to listen to people talk about reasons for volunteering.

ADVENTURER: In the 9's, any travels around Europe would have meant dealing with different currencies—finding your Francs in France, dealing in Drachma in Greece, paying with Peseta in Spain, making purchases with Marks in Germany. Different coins with different sizes and values. Different notes of different denominations each saying something unique about the country's culture and traditions. Do you think a nation's coins and bank notes are a part of its culture, tradition and heritage? From January 22, the fifteen European countries who had agreed to form the "Eurozone", gave up their old currency and adopted a new one.

ADVENTURER1: There was a transition period where citizens could use both their old and their new currencies, but nevertheless, adopting a single currency was a big step to take. For example, over eighty billion coins had to be made and distributed. But what was the reason for this change? Why did strong centers of finance such as France and Germany decide to use a single currency? Well, look at it this way ... the existing "member states" at the time, had already made an important trade agreement known as the "Single Market".

ADVENTURER2: The Single Market allowed member states to do business under the protection of the "four freedoms", that is ... the freedom of movement of goods, capital, people and services within the EU. In other words, if you're from an EU country, you can do business with, travel to, or move money into or out of, any EU country, just as easily as if it were your own country. You can imagine how much easier business between these countries became. An added plus was that in doing so, the EU parliament in Brussels, Belgium, brought in laws to improve the profitability of trade with the outside world.

ADVENTURER3: For example, when goods are imported into an EU country, a tariff, of course, must be paid. However, for those goods to then go from that EU country to another EU country, no more tariffs have to be paid. Therefore, using a single currency, the Euro, seemed the next logical step. Now, not only can the EU play hardball with any country in the world, including the U S, India, China or Russia, simply because of its strength in numbers, but the "Eurozone" states can also do business with each other using the same currency, therefore saving time and money. That's great for Europe, but what about the rest of the world?