The Future Of The European Union

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The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 countries that are located mainly in the continent of Europe and comprises a total population of 505.665.000 people. The EU has ensured the free movement of people, goods and services between countries in order to enhance home affairs, maintain trade and develop a single market. All countries in the European Union retain some power to handle themselves, although there are other areas where the EU has exclusive competence such as common policies, competition rules and commercial policy.
The unemployment rate has increased in the past years since the crisis started and it reaches a 10.5% today. However the Gross Domestic Power is still positive with an annual growth of 0.1%. According to the International Monetary Fund, at the end of 2013, the European GDP was the world ‘s largest going up to 17,371,618 millions US dollars. The inflation rate still stays low at 1.5%.

HISTORY AND MAIN SHIPYARDS
At the beginning of the 20th century Europe controlled the shipbuilding market, possessing 80% of the global market. As the century advanced, this leadership position was overthrown firstly by Japan in the 1950s and later by South Korea in the 1970s (ECORYS SCS Group ,2009). Despite of the increasing competition of these countries, Europe managed to maintain itself between the leaders of this industry throughout the second half of the 20th century.
The fast growth of the Chinese shipbuilding industry has a high impact on Europe. During the first decade of the 21st century Europe lost a big part of its share market and the most important shipyard in Europe ranked 38th in terms of orderbook measured in CGT in 2008 (ECORYS SCS Group ,2009).
In 2013 Europe had only the 1,1% of the w...

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...er new market opportunities and to increase competitiveness (European Commission, 2013).

Nevertheless, even when Europe had lost competitiveness and new orders in favour of other countries, most of the European shipyards were able to keep its strong position in some specific high-tech and quality market segments such as cruise vessels, luxury yachts, offshore vessels, military vessels and shiprepair. At present, four countries dominate the European shipbuilding industry: Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Romania (ECORYS SCS Group ,2009). The future of European Shipbuilding industry depends on the capacity of reduce the number of shipyards through mergers and acquisitions increasing their capacity or the capacity to set up European consortiums that help to save money and allow to increase investments in R&D, innovation and business development (Spiegel, 2005).

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