HAS THE EU SINGLE MARKET BROUGHT CONVERGENCE AND RESILIENCE?

The European Union (EU) is the largest single market in the world, although nearly 60% of trade takes place among member countries. Trade expansion was in part the outcome of European institutions negotiating mutually beneficial trade agreements with third countries. Strong openness also increased delocalization and strategic dependences on global value chains, aspects that may be problematic in the new geopolitical context marked by lockdowns and deglobalization. This paper analyses the role of the EU within the global market and its interconnections with the rest of the world, with particular reference to two aspects. First, whether globalization allowed the EU to become structurally more cohesive and more resilient to external shocks. Second, whether the EU acted as a “system of systems” to strengthen and advance member countries’ participation in global trade networks in place of the simple sum of member countries. Data show that European integration has increased trade, but has not fostered structural convergence within the Union, which remains a heterogeneous group of clusters. A polarized convergence between East and West is taking place in the global scenario and only some European countries seem to have the structural standards typical of the most developed countries. Such a lack of structural compactness could explain why the EU does not have the common internal cohesion necessary to guarantee energy autonomy and technological and resource sovereignty, in spite of being a fundamental trader in the global market.