Well, maybe. However, an obituary is also a moment for honest reflection on someone’s work and accomplishments. Surely three decades is enough time to judge anything. It should be clear to anyone by now that the single market has not delivered anything like its promises. Just look at some evidence.
First of all, intra-EU trade, i.e. the flow of goods between different member states, which should have been greatly enhanced through the single market, has rarely moved. This proportion rose to about 22% of manufactured goods in the early 1990s, reinforcing a trend that began in the 1960s and 1970s, and thereafter remained quite constant.
And then, instead of accelerating, growth has slowed, certainly relative to the United States, and now China and increasingly India as well.
As a percentage of global GDP, the EU has fallen from around 30% two decades ago to roughly 15% now, and while the UK’s departure and rising prosperity in other regions have played a role, it has been persistently low growth that is to an extent Far from the main explanation for its relative decline.
Deutsche Bank admitted in an analysis marking its 20th anniversary a decade ago that “the actual verifiable impact of the single market has often fallen short of (partly very optimistic) expectations.” This was certainly true at the time, and nothing has happened to change this ruling ten years later.