4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Competitiveness and market integration Another important aspect is the growth and competitiveness-enhancing potential of further market integration in Europe. One example is a very recent study, which finds that applying the EU Patent would raise the gains for European firms from patenting inventions by 60%.
Furthermore, if all countries also adopted best practices, those gains would more than double. I quote this example to show that improving competitiveness in Europe does not imply a race between euro area countries, but rather the exploitation of their comparative advantages in the single market and a global economy that offer far greater growth possibilities than each economy on its own.