>>I agree Charles, however, free trade only works if it is fair free trade for all. Somehow good ideas seldom get implemented fairly.
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>Quite true. See my comment to Dragan referencing Adam Smith. That is why Conquest makes the arguement that political union - or at least consensus - must logically precede economic union - whereas the EU approach has been that economic union will lead to political union. The framework of law and consensus must be there before you have what is needed for real open markets.

While I'm no expert on EU, I think they actually had too many legal frameworks and too many markets to start with, so the political union had to begin with the simplification of the framework. Also it probably was a big selling point for the masses. I've seen how border crossing looked between Netherlands and Germany 30 years ago - when I traveled on a train, I had to have a long chat with the Dutch border officer; on the way back, I was in a car with German plates, and the guy in the booth just nodded. Didn't even bother to wave us through.