Intra-EU trade is domestic!
On Sunday we had a brainstorming session about Global Enterprise Week and it's relation to Young Entrepreneurs of Europe goals to prepare for the World Entrepreneurship Congress for GEW Hosts in Kansas City next week. In the first minutes of our discussion we found we had a problem... It was a problem to define if intra-EU entrepreneurship should be considered international or domestic. I'll give you some examples: A company based in France sells goods to a company in Germany, is this international or domestic trade? A services company based in Italy opens a new office in Spain, has this company expanded internationally? If we were in US, selling from New York to California would be domestic. But in Europe it's different. Ideally it shouldn't be any different... Intra-EU trade should be considered domestic.
Of course, the problem is not the wording. We could use a word like "inter-state" that would resolve the problem. But the problem is that Europeans do not understand EU as one country. If they did, they would understand it's power and that EU ranks first at the list of countries by GDP... Yes, USA is in second place, didn't you know that?
I wonder if EU will ever manage to become one country not just in papers, but in reality. Especially now, that some members act as if they promote the interests of foreign countries and not EU's interests. I'm sure that the current financial crisis will act as a catalyst, but I don't know in which direction. I hope it will help EU-States unite and not separate...