Understanding the Four Faces of Europe: Preparing for Freer Commerce

This briefing identifies—based on economic and business criteria—four European country groupings, each presenting pros and cons for Canadian businesses.

Document Highlights

While Europe as a whole is in slow-growth mode, there is no single European market. This briefing’s unique contribution is to use a Canadian-business lens to identify and divide Europe into four groupings:

the integrated value chain grouping of Germany and its Eastern European neighbours;

the global niche players of Northern Europe;

the inward-looking, large consumer markets such as France;

the UK’s services-led model.

We identify key opportunities and challenges each grouping presents for Canadians trading products and services with, or setting up affiliate operations in Europe.

This briefing is part of Signal49 Research’s Global Commerce Centre series on preparing for the completion of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.