Cross border services in the internal market: an important contribution to economic and social cohesion

Over the years, European value chains have become increasingly relevant to employment in the EU. While research on industrial value chains is broadly covered in recent years, the effects of value-chains in European service sectors still needs to be quantified. Especially the impact of cross border services in the EU need further coverage. This study tries to fill this gap by quantifying the number of employees dependent on the exports of services to other member states. It especially examines the contribution of cross-border services to a productive competition and to economic and social cohesion within the European Union using established statistic tools.

The findings show that the impact of cross border services in the European economy has greatly increased from 2000 to 2014. Cross border services play an important role in all the member states and in labor and knowledge intensive sectors alike. The study also shows the positive connection of cross border services with growth in employment, GDP and with social cohesion indicators. By describing the positive effects of cross border services in the EU the potential risks of overregulation of the European cross border service market can be examined.