Sadly, the FT has gotten aggressive with their paywall gating. I couldn't find an archived version of this article, so for now, the best I can do is the gift-link in the attached tweet. Here is the FT link, but it requires a subscription: https://www.ft.com/content/35bbe00a-75c6-4c9e-9f23-94f61ce87cdb
The Djungelskog toy from Ikea may only be 12cm tall and cost less than €2, but it has a 20cm-long label protruding from its behind.
Bureaucracy always wins:
The single market in goods should be the EU’s crowning achievement. Compared with free movement of people, services or capital, it is the area that has come furthest in more than 30 years since the common market was established.Yet there remain small, often invisible barriers to trade that, taken together, amount to what the IMF estimates is a drag on Europe’s economy equivalent to a tariff of 44 per cent.
The article describes the absolute mess that is regulation in the market that is supposed to be the EU.
Much of the problem springs from individual countries imposing national rules in areas such as environmental labelling. At times companies also blame the European Commission for not enforcing its own rules and trying to stop bureaucracy in its tracks.
Companies “that are producing the same product across the EU receive very conflicting messages, and will end up being sanctioned or rewarded for the same product in the 27 member states”, Dessi said.
If the benefits of the union aren't showing up here, one wonders where they show up at all...