Uuuuuh... you could call the EU a lot of things, but "fostering free market" is a hot take. I'm sorry. When you look at the amount of regulation the EU brings to the table (EU basically is the poster child of market regulation), I would go as far as to say that your claim is objectively not true. We can debate how regulation is a good thing because this and that, but regulation - by definition - limits the free market. And there is an argument to be made, backed up literally thousands of regulations the EU has come up with, that the EU limits the free market a lot. When you factor in the regulations that are imposed on its member countries (I mean directly on the goverments) one could easily claim that it is the most harsh regulator on the planet. I could go into detail about the so called green deal, etc. but all of these things are easy to look up on the net / or official sources from the EU portal.
> but regulation - by definition - limits the free market.
Not always true.
Consumer labeling laws enable the free market, because a free market requires participates have full knowledge of the goods they are buying, or else fair competition cannot exist.
If two companies are competing to sell wool coats, and one company is actually selling a 50% wool blend but advertising it as 100% wool, that is not a free market, that is fraud. Regulation exists to ensure that companies selling real wool coats are competing with each other, and that companies selling wool blends are competing with each other, and that consumers can choose which product that they want to buy without being tricked.
Without labeling laws, consumers end up assuming a certain % of fraud will always happen, which reduces the price they are willing to pay for goods, which then distorts the market.
>one could easily claim that it is the most harsh regulator on the planet.
The argument that the EU is a more harsh regulator than Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, (or even on par with those regulatory regimes) entirely undermines the rest of your comment.
There's pretty well tested and highly respected indexes which fundamentally disagree. Of the 7 most economically free nations, three are in the EU, and a fourth is automatically party to the majority of the EU's economic regulations.
The level of regulation is only a small part of what makes a market free or not
The EU does a ton to limit state aid, monopolistic practices and has a pretty extensive network of trade agreements
Also you say imposed as if the countries themselves don't want them, every regulation at the EU level replaces what would've been 10 different ones at the member states level, this uniformity is arguably a net positive on its own
Uuuuuh... you could call the EU a lot of things, but "fostering free market" is a hot take. I'm sorry. When you look at the amount of regulation the EU brings to the table (EU basically is the poster child of market regulation), I would go as far as to say that your claim is objectively not true. We can debate how regulation is a good thing because this and that, but regulation - by definition - limits the free market. And there is an argument to be made, backed up literally thousands of regulations the EU has come up with, that the EU limits the free market a lot. When you factor in the regulations that are imposed on its member countries (I mean directly on the goverments) one could easily claim that it is the most harsh regulator on the planet. I could go into detail about the so called green deal, etc. but all of these things are easy to look up on the net / or official sources from the EU portal.