EU calls for study on unified market

BRUSSELS, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- European Union Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso has asked for a study on moving the EU to a more unified market system.

Former commissioner Mario Monti, currently the president of Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, has agreed to take on the task, the Euobserver reported Tuesday.

A single market system has fewer cross-border restrictions than a common market approach to economic cooperation. While the EU has a single market system in place, in practice the economic crisis of the past year has tested individual country's resolve with calls for more protectionism and individual states moving to shore up the financial system with different approaches.

"Clearly state aid in the financial sector was needed, because there was a real risk of major problems, not only for individual firms but for the financial sector and the European economy as a whole," Andre Sapir, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels, told the EUobserver.