This article will examine the industrial prospect of, and for a, greater Europe.

This article will generally assume that all mentions of Europe or EU, are the European Union and their close partners which could be considered European based on location and shared history (mostly Switzerland, Scandinavian countries and potentially the United Kingdom), to avoid mentioning specific exceptions to specific situation. We are aware that not every country listed before is actually in the EU or might not even consider itself European. The requirement for location based, is for them to contribute to the larger industrial area, and benefit from such policies.

What it should look like

Please be aware that we are describing an future idealistic situation, not the current one: In the ideal, we start with a united front that has fully harmonised all regulations, plus they can change those laws as needed without having to worry about local exceptions. There are exactly zero limitations on movement of capital and all banks are active in all countries. The existence of a couple of pan-European banks instead of many local players being active in all countries is presumably more realistic, but that would be bad for competition and the EU has been rather active in that area.

There should be an active policy of supporting key industries. These industries should be something that the EU has a real competitive advantage in and ought to be based on knowledge plus added value for local smaller industries; the companies that supply the bigger players and each other. Needless to say that the environmental impact of the industries should be extremely low, possibly via compensation and/or capturing pollution.

Pros

• Absolute free movement (people, goods and capital), means that everybody can maximise their wealth by going to the place where it can add the most, or open an account in such a place. This can cause temporary downsides as the place where it comes from could suffer shortages; shortages increase demand, which increases price, so the tides movements will turn back in that region`s favour eventually.
• With diminished local governments, public orders can be grouped for superior quantum discounts or bargaining power.
• A unified EU can stand up to big countries with a single voice.
• Lacking limitation on banking, they can finally break open the many billions in savings that Europeans have stored in their bank accounts. This money can be used to fuel investments internally. Should be noted that there is a risk of the money being used in stock exchanges outside of Europe, resulting the home market being starved of funds, which is a genuine problem for scale-ups at moment of writing.
• A single set of regulations means less paperwork and less costs in selling to other countries. The only real remaining differentiating costs (besides regular costs such as shipping and advertisement) remains language; current laws dictate that the native tongue of a country must be printed on the label with food items and such. This law is unlikely to be removed as it reduces the chance of allergic reactions, a.o..
• A massive amount of back office savings can be created for government task. Just to take the example of law enforcement; these have a relatively big country based organisation, plus a international one and there even is one specifically for  the EU.

Cons

• A risk of having open borders is that it makes it relatively easy for an outside party to flood the market with cheap products, thereby undermining the internal supply side.
• Competition between internal countries is not fully discouraged, as long as they adhere to central mandates (presumably mostly related tax and HR). Areas with a highly educated workforce have an advantage, but so do those that can find special budgets or other incentives. Though this may seem like a positive; it does counter the strategy of a large body that acts for the greater good, instead it is a small region acting in its own interest.
• The big change in how European economies work is likely to drive away or bankrupt many businesses. Those that cannot compete with bigger companies  will fall, where those that are better at differentiating between local countries could flourish.
• Europe is far from unified when it comes to even the most basic stuff (salaries, drinking water, etc.) so getting everyone up to the standard of the most advanced country will require an immense expense and several years of hard labour. Some countries actually have difficulty doing any sort of building project due to environmental rules, so it might not be possible, on the short to mid term, to create the required infrastructure. Choosing a lower standard is possible, but risky at it does not invoke a drive to excellence from the get go.

Requirements to get there

1 All local governments must adhere to centrally made decisions. Local government can still decide on local matters, but Europe comes first. This might be tricky at first when it comes to foreign policy, Europe consists of many small countries that either have a colonial heritage or a cold war history. Plus more current obligations and interest.

2 Businesses may not impede any client from within the EU form doing any form of business with them. This one requires quite a bit of legal discussion, as it should discourage businesses from focusing on a specific country or region within the EU, instead of the whole larger region. But there should be reason in it; you should not force a small grocery store to deliver perishables several thousands of kilometres away.

3 Central legislation means central in a lot of areas. At the moment things like pension age, all benefits and VAT still vary greatly, these will have to unified. Make no mistake, unifying all of these will lead to many protest.

4 Housing is going to be an issue; high demand areas are already facing severe shortages, this will get worse. A possible solution is to make it attractive for people who build houses to move first, or change your appeal according to how much you actually have available.

General observations

Earlier we mention environmental impact: If legislation is created to enforce extremely low impact, you really need added mandatory buy European legislation. Otherwise the price of locally produced clean products will be considerably higher than foreign polluting products. The mandatory buying of European goods and services does not have to be 100% (which is not be realistic), but a good 60% is a nice figure to aim for. Failure to do so will lead to a decrease in investments since European businesses know that no one will buy their more expensive goods.

It would be easier to mandate a high minimum of local workers hired for a big Europe. Forbidding anyone from settling in the EU without creating local jobs becomes a lot easier if they cannot go to another EU country without facing the same demand.

We discussed the ideal future situation as bigger industries and smaller ones working in harmony, this is risky as the loss of a big player will jeopardise every connected smaller player. This risk could effect a very large area due to interconnected dependencies. Having smaller companies that can make many other product is a good safety future, as opposed to them only making a single item for a single customer.