The initiative One Europe, One Market, launched in March by the European Parliament, the Council, and the European Commission, aims to completely integrate the internal market before the end of 2027. This will be through a roadmap for which Brussels has created a compass with four cardinal points: deepening and integrating a single market; a process of regulatory simplification and reduction of bureaucratic burden; a reconversion of its industrial policy encouraging innovation; and progress towards full European technological sovereignty and a path leading the Old Continent to energy neutrality and independence.
In short, this is an effort to deepen and modernize production within a more efficient single market that operates under a European corporate framework (EU Inc), enabling companies to operate anywhere within the EU under a single legal structure rather than having to comply with 27 different national laws.
The logic instilled by Brussels in this integration project acknowledges that, in an environment shaped by the current geopolitical climate, the EU needs to operate as a homogeneous and harmonized economy if it wishes to assert its international weight and influence and gain global competitiveness vis-à-vis other superpowers. This is not only recommended by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta in their respective analyses of the situation, which have served as a blueprint for the European Commission to embark on this reformist path over the past year and a half. Analytical studies, such as that by the Jacques Delors Institute, also advise this course of action, arguing that the European economy is operating "below its potential" due to the clear divergences in its energy, financial, and digital markets.
But how can these five geostrategic pillars be synthesized? And above all, what role will the energy transition to renewable sources play in this roadmap?
- Regulatory simplification. Brussels aims to reduce administrative burdens and regulatory distortions among its partners. The strategy aims to replace directives with directly applicable European regulations, limit national over-transposition, and review obsolete or overly complex legislation. The goal is to eliminate regulatory costs that hinder investments and business scalability.
The Delors Center warns that this simplification should not be understood as deregulation, but rather as "greater European integration." It is a process of replacing the extensive mosaic of 27 national frameworks with homogeneous play rules that can offer the private sector legal and operational predictability. In that logic, Brussels will give preference to regulations over directives to avoid fragmentation caused by conflicting national interpretations.
- Deepening of the single market. The EU aims to complete European economic integration by reducing financial, legal, and administrative barriers. The initiative includes the creation of EU Inc, a proposal for a harmonized corporate regime designed to address a long-standing problem in the internal market: while Europe promotes the free movement of goods and capital, in practice, its companies must contend with significant regulatory and bureaucratic differences, depending on each member state's legal framework.
These barriers are especially difficult for startups, tech companies, or SMEs to overcome in order to scale up and thrive quickly both within and outside the single market. For this reason, the EU aims to reduce national regulatory costs related to corporate governance, insolvency, and cross-border expansion, and to facilitate better access to financing.
Experts at the Delors think tank believe that EU Inc could become one of the "most transformative" tools due to its challenge of shaping a pan-European business environment.
Commercial and industry reinforcement. The program incorporates strategic commercial agreements and mechanisms to mitigate critical dependencies. It also provides tools to reinforce European supply chains in sensitive sectors, from raw materials to advanced industrial technologies.
In this sense, they have added a special incentive, the so-called Industrial Accelerator Act, the legislative proposal currently under negotiation that has been designed to accelerate European industrial capabilities and strengthen the position of industry players and leaders. The legal aim of this initiative is to rebuild European manufacturing capacity in strategic segments and increase industrial muscle to 20% of the European GDP by 2035. To this end, it introduces "Made in EU" and low-emission criteria for public procurement and state aid. Additionally, it reinforces restrictions on foreign investments exceeding 100 million euros in emerging strategic sectors.
- Digital and technological transformation. Brussels also aims to accelerate the deployment of AI infrastructures and quantum cloud computing to provide its own sovereignty and pan-European capabilities in businesses such as semiconductors, where the gain in external competitiveness and the need to reduce its technological gap with Washington and Beijing is urgent.
At Delors, they argue that Europe is not so much facing a technological deficit as it is the challenge of scaling up and better integrating technical advances into innovation. To that end, the initiative proposes everything from AI gigafactories to a single market for digital networks and common cybersecurity regulations.
- Energy transition and decarbonization. This initiative places energy at the center of European industrial competitiveness and proposes accelerating electrical interconnections, modernizing continental grids, reducing energy price differences between Member States, and strengthening the productive architecture of renewable sources with the goal of establishing a true Energy Union.
This goal is supported by Commission proposals such as the European Grids Package, Energy Highways or the review of the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS), the European emissions rights market, which are aimed at lowering industrial invoices, strengthening EU autonomy, and turning decarbonization into a competitive advantage against the US and China.
For its part, the Commission specifies that the new interconnections necessary to unify energy flows could reduce the European energy bill by about 9 billion euros annually by 2040. Meanwhile, according to officials in Brussels, the modernization of the continent's energy sector will require investments of nearly 1.2 trillion euros by 2040.
Therefore, One Europe, One Market dedicates a specific roadmap to the construction of a true Energy Union:
- European Grids Package. Accelerate large cross-border electrical interconnections, reduce administrative bottlenecks, and strengthen European grids to add renewable energy and lower industrial energy costs.
- Energy Highways. A plan for eight geostrategic energy corridors designed to address the continent's major bottlenecks, particularly between northern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, and the continent's industrial center.
- Electricity market reform. Modification of energy taxation and network charges to structurally reduce electricity prices and improve competitiveness.
- ETS Revision. The EU aims to preserve the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS) —the European emissions rights market— as a sign of economic identity to guide industrial investments towards low-carbon technologies.
It considers that weakening this system could damage investor confidence when Europe is trying to accelerate its green industrial transition. Not surprisingly, the ETS has contributed approximately 47% of the emission reductions recorded in the covered sectors since 2005, as noted in the EC's own Energy, Climate Change and Environment document. In fact, according to the Commission, the ETS covers approximately 40% of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions and applies to more than 10,000 industrial and energy facilities across various sectors, including electricity generation, heat production, and energy-intensive industries, as well as air and maritime transport. The system has been gradually expanded since its creation in 2005.
Therefore, according to the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), the problem is no longer solely climatic, but economic. Their analysis suggests that Europe risks becoming technologically dependent on other markets "in sectors that must drive industrial decarbonization." This is quite a paradox. This assessment highlights the importance of the European industrial agenda.
Ultimately, the EU aims to convert its net zero CO2 emissions policy into a competitive advantage on the global stage. In this context, the energy transition shifts from being viewed as an environmental obligation to being viewed as an industrial goal aimed at strengthening energy independence and supporting European reindustrialization within a new decarbonized paradigm.
Ignacio J. Domingo has spent most of his 30 years of professional practice analyzing geopolitical, international economic and capital market issues in Expansión and collaborating with media channels such as El Confidencial, Capital, Estrategias de Inversión and El Diario.es, among others. He received the award as a first runner-up for the Citigroup Award, which recognizes the best annual economic reporting.