Almost 10% of single-market directives have yet to be fully implemented.Ominously, the leaders of France and Germany, two of the worst laggards over these directives, are also chafing at EU rules that stop them subsidising industries.
In the past, thanks to free-flowing oil revenues, governments had always been able to create jobs, feed the poor, rescue banks, subsidise industry and buy off critics.
They would like a lot more of it: in a contest to subsidise industries, rich countries always win.But that stance will not hold indefinitely if things get worse.
Even French farmers must be wondering how much longer the EU can be induced to go on devoting half its budget to subsidising an industry that employs only about 5% of the EU's working population.
Fishermen, who often occupy an important place in a country's self-image, have succeeded in persuading governments to spend other people's money subsidising an industry that loses billions and does huge environmental damage.
They are also colonising the sort of northern contemporary drama that used to be touted as the main justification for subsidising the industry.Disney, that icon of Americana, for instance, has set up a production outfit, the UK Comedy Label, dedicated to what Daniel Battsek, its head, calls "high concept, low budget" British comedies.
Import protection generally shelters the least productive industries and therefore the ones least likely to export.The argument for protecting or subsidising "infant industries" until they have become strong enough to compete abroad is complicated.
This country had impoverished itself by subsidising sunset industries.
Then there are the tax breaks that subsidise the industry, some of which expire in 2009.
Also, in the long run it makes little sense to subsidise an industry whose inefficiencies mean it cannot compete globally.
