Politics

500 million potential clients

Every day, people, goods, capital and services move freely between our national borders, which greatly contributes to economic growth - and thereby contributes to everyone’s wealth.

For Swedish companies this means a valuable opportunity to trade, not just to the 10 million people living in Sweden, but to an EU market that includes over 500 million potential customers.

For us citizens, this means that we have better access to a wider range of higher- quality goods and services at lower prices.

Over the 25 years in which the single market has existed, it has contributed to the growth of millions of new jobs across Europe and increased EU GDP by 1.7 percent compared to the absence of a single market.

Trading without customs and border controls

The basic idea of ​​the single market is that we can trade without customs and border controls between EU member states. It means that goods and people now move as easily between Örebro and Hamburg as between Malmö and Gothenburg. Despite the great successes of the internal market, there are still some trader barriers, such as national rules that create unnecessary problems for trade between EU member states, for example in the digital field. By eliminating these barriers, for example for service companies and digital services, we could increase the benefit of the single market even further.

Since it may be difficult, especially for small and medium sized companies, to know all the rules and laws in other member states, it is important to continue the work to simplify and harmonize these rules as far as it is possible.

Although the digital economy and the internet have led to new opportunities for trade between our countries, legislation and regulations have not always changed at the same pace. Too often it is too difficult or uncertain to buy or sell goods and services over the internet in other member states. I and the Liberal party in Sweden, Liberalerna, are working on changing that. In the sub-headings you can read more about that work.