This Policy Contribution tests the hypothesis that an imbalance has grown in Europe over the last few decades because markets have integrated to a greater extent than European-level policymaking, potentially creating difficulties for the democratic process in managing the economy. This hypothesis has been put forward by several authors but not so far tested empirically.









To evaluate the process of European market integration – or market Europeanisation – over the last few decades, we assess intra-European trade and intra-European capital flows.

Useful comments were received from Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, Guntram Wolff, Zsolt Darvas, Simone Tagliapietra, Grégory Claeys, Enrico Bergamini and Maria Demertzis.

Our results show that, measured by our proxies, policy Europeanisation has developed more rapidly than market Europeanisation, measured on the basis of both trade and capital flows. It is however also noted that the relative number of public employees has outpaced the relative frequency of European Union news in the media, possibly indicating a technocratic slant in policy Europeanisation. Further research could test the robustness of our results, in particular by using other measures of policy Europeanisation, such as the impact of European legislation on national laws and regulations.