Competitiveness & Growth: From CRM to Single Market

Lead: Institut Alternativa (Montenegro) Co-Lead: Riinvest (Kosovo)

This group addresses the economic underpinnings of EU integration and regional cooperation at a moment when enlargement is increasingly framed through strategic autonomy, supply chains, and geopolitical competition. It examines the economic convergence between the EU and the region through data and sectoral analysis, and tracks progress in building a functional Common Regional Market (CRM) steppingstone to the EU Single Market – a role established in the Growth Plan and CRM 2.0. Its central concern is the gap between commitment and delivery: the challenge is no longer defining the regional integration agenda but implementing it effectively. The group works through four priorities: evidence-based impact monitoring, developing the CRM as a competitiveness platform, a Single Market readiness roadmap, and aligning industrial policy with EU strategic priorities, while exploring persistent competitiveness gaps in labor markets, skills, and productivity, with the aim of positioning regional economies as contributors to Europe's industrial ecosystems rather than markets to be aligned.