The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There are different suggestions regarding how to solve the issues the article has, but there is clearly no consensus for deletion. The discussion should continue on the relevant talk-pages. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Single market (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics

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• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. —— Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 13:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've nominated this article of deletion of the basis that it is pure original research. While Alinor has made considerable efforts to clear up up the article and reduced the manner in which the article previously deemed certain economic agreements to create single markets, I still think that the best way to deal with more than one group of countries describing an economic area as a "single market" would be to have an disambiguation page. I recommend deletion of this article for the following reasons:

1. The single market, if it refers to anything, can only refer to the EU's single market. By trying to apply it as a global concept which can be applied to other markets is original research.
2. The distinction the article tries to draw between the common market and the single market is entirely artificial. Both involved the same four freedoms. This can be clearly see in the original Treaty of Rome. Renaming the common market, the single market was just a re-branding exercise carried out in the late eighties. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 14:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
3. While the single market was the focus of a considerable push for economic integration within the EC, it is wrong to describe this in terms of economic theory. A single market is not a concept in the lines of a customs union or a free-trade area. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 14:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree that the common vs. single division seems artificial (and is not sourced), but I disagree that this is purely EU issue. As seen in the article the EFTA (non-EU) and EEA (EU+Norway+Iceland+Liechtenstein) are also common markets. Some other trade blocs also have similar initiatives.

  I disagree to delete the article. Maybe rename to Common market and/or overhaul of the text, but in any case not delete. A disambiguation page with links to all common/single markets may be OK, but some background info on "what is a single/common market" will also be required (with worldwide view on the subject, not EU-focused), so why not we just overhaul the text? Alinor (talk) 14:22, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge with (and redirect to) Economic Union, after removing the original research and other unsourced information. There might also (conceivably) be some stuff that belongs in Free Trade Area.--Boson (talk) 14:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Economic Union appears to suffer from the same kind of OR that Single Market suffers from. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 17:34, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are two different things. I agree that they could be better sourced, but in any case the previous awful mix of different things into a single list was much worse (and incorrect for many of the entities).

    In any case deletion is bad idea, because this is a widely used term, so many people will be looking for such article. Alinor (talk) 19:01, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • See for example [1] - both "common market" and "economic union" are described in the context of "Economic Integration: Overview". Anyway, the problem is not the lack of sources for each of these stages (from both theoretical and practical point of view), but that sources contradict each other. I tried to synchronize the Wikipedia articles about Economic integration, Trade pact and Trade bloc (plus the List of ...integration-type.../FTA/CU/EMU/etc. articles), so that at least they do not contradict each other (and to correct obvious mistakes such as EEA listed in customs unions, etc.) - but we can't do anything with the different sources use different definition for the same "stage". Anyway, having contradicting sources does not mean that no "common market"/"economic union"/etc. exist - it just means that there could be different definitions of those. Maybe we should add some note in this sense to the article(s)? Alinor (talk) 19:34, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Do not delete and find an editorial solution. I don't think that solving this problem requires deletion, so we are in the wrong forum here. Making this a disambiguation page or merging the content all do not require deletion and can be discussed on the article talk page. Apart from that, I agree with much of the criticism by Blue-Haired Lawyer; there is indeed much OR and just plain wrong content in there (there are huge differences, for instance, between the EEA and the much looser Switzerland-EU relationship). Because of the multitude of forms that economic integration takes in- and outside of Europe, people sometimes use the same terms for different forms of integration and vice versa. But all this whole topic area really needs is some serious expert attention. Either we treat "single market" as a topic peculiar to European integration and redirect and merge accordingly, or we follow Alinor and continue to try to describe it as a generic form of integration closer than a FTA/customs union but less close than economic union. I don't know which solution is correct, but there is a ton of literature about the subject, and somebody needs to pick a few good recent university textbooks and try to follow whatever terminology they agree on. This could, for example, be discussed on Talk:Economic integration.  Sandstein  07:37, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree, just a quick comment - of course the different common markets are different - just as FTAs are different, CUs are different, etc. - each one is an unique treaty with its specifics. But there are common features among these treaties, and that's why they are listed there - EFTA, EEA, EU-Switzerland. Actually these three form a matrix/triangle (EEA non-EU are in EFTA; Switzerland is in EFTA).

The major de jure difference between EEA and EU-Switzerland is that EEA automatically (non-EU EEA states are obliged) adopts new EU legislation (e.g. such that entered into force AFTER signature of the EEA agreement), but Switzerland doesn't do that automatically (is not obliged), but does it after the different EU-Swiss joint committees (for the different policy topics) take such decision. "In practice this right is severely restricted by the so-called Guillotine Clause, giving both parties a right to cancellation of the entire body of treaties when one new treaty or stipulation cannot be made applicable in Switzerland." (see Switzerland – European Union relations).

Thus de facto EEA and EU-Switzerland are very similar.

Additionally there are the EAC, ASEAN and CIS/EurAsEC/Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan announced/proposed common markets - but since these are proposed and there are no actual treaties yet - there is no way to know what form they will eventually take. They can be similar to the EFTA/EEA/EU-Swiss or they may go straight for an single market+customs union or they can implement something different (like ALBA claims to invent a new way of trade relations and monetary system between states) - time will tell. Alinor (talk) 08:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Deleting the article is not warranted - per Sandstein. There exist enough reliable source material to develop the article and find an editorial solution to the above noted issues. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.