3.4.1.2 Multinational Economic Regulation – the EU
Multinational economic regulation is firmly applied within formal political groupings such as the EU, but other agreements are less robust.
The European Union (EU) offers the best example of what is possible:
● The European Commission has introduced a harmonised set of commercial regulations, to avoid its member countries having to comply with many different sets of regulations in what is intended to be a single market.
● The European Central Bank also provides some financial regulation in the Eurozone.
These EU regulations can be considered to be the most mature of the world’s existing multinational economic regulation. As described later (6.6.5), there are two other multinational bodies with economic aspirations – but it is too early to tell whether they will introduce common economic regulation:
● The Southern African Development Community (SADC) includes among its objectives: “to promote sustainable and equitable economic growth and socio-economic development through efficient, productive systems, deeper cooperation and integration, good governance…”. Economic regulation would be essential to reach those goals.
● The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) describes itself as “a South American forum for addressing political, social, economic, environmental and infrastructure issues”. It has had a shaky start, although it may revive. And, like the SADC, it would need to agree economic regulation.
There are other multinational regulations on some contentious issues that are described later, in the form of trade agreements (3.5.4.5) and protecting the environment (3.5.7).
This page is intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition04/3412a.htm.