Integrating services markets: a comparison of European Union and Australian experiences

In 2006, the European Union (EU) Services Directive entered into force. Member states were required to give effect to its provisions before 28 December 2009. According to its preamble, the directive sets out a general legal framework dealing with a range of services. The aim of the directive is to remove barriers to the free movement of services and service providers. This serves the further aim of creating, by 2010, an internal market in services. The EU internal market consists of just under 500 million people in 27 member states. On the other side of the world, the EU Services Directive has been considered by some as offering a blueprint for better integrating the services market in Australia. However, the Australian 'internal market' consists of not quite 22 million people in six states and two territories. Its legal system belongs to the common law family, whereas the EU legal system, although a sui generis one, is nevertheless unavoidably influenced by the civil law tradition of the majority of its member states. Using the functional approach towards comparative law, this article examines the Australian and EU experiences of integrating the services market, taking the recent EU Services Directive as the focal point for discussion. The article begins with an overview of this directive before exploring the similarities and differences in the two legal systems. The purpose of this comparative analysis is to test whether the EU does hold any lessons for Australia in liberalising services markets or whether, instead, there might be lessons for the EU from Australia.