ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies how the most critical areas of European Union (EU) activity can affect sectors and individual firms. The European Parliament has become an increasing target for business interests to engage with the EU policy process because successive changes to the EU treaty base have given it more power and leverage among the EU institutions. While national governments still control some major levers of macro-economic policy, the European Central Bank is now responsible for monetary policy and interest rates in the Eurozone. The ambition of the EU from the outset has been to create a fully integrated market, where the freedoms could operate seamlessly. The EU has jurisdiction over the operations of the customs union although the day-to-day delivery of border controls and responsibility for border infrastructures lies with the member states. For over 50 years agriculture in Europe has been dominated by the common agriculture policy, the EU's first policy programme for a whole sector of business activity.
