ABSTRACT
By December 31, 1992, the 12-member European Community (EC) is scheduled to complete its plan of creating the world's largest trading bloc. Since 1958, when six initial members, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany, signed the Rome Treaties, there has been a European Economic Community or Common Market. Since that time, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Spain have joined. The end of 1992 marks the projected time for removing all remaining barriers to free trade among these countries. The EC will then compose a single market of 320 million people, and will generate an estimated $2.4 trillion a year in gross domestic product (“A Survey of Europe's Internal Market,” 1988). The size of this market can be emphasized by comparing it to the United States, which has 247 million people and an economic output of $3.9 trillion.
