EC Inaugurates Move to Single-Market Economy : Europe: Elimination of trade barriers and open borders is expected to boost commerce, but war and recession mute the enthusiasm.

After the parties celebrating New Year’s and the creation of a huge marketplace from the Azores to Rhodes fizzled out Friday, European Community leaders said the new single-market plan will not be a cure-all to the economic and social problems in the region.

With the inauguration of the EC’s single-market plan, most trade barriers are eliminated between the 12 member nations, and travel across Europe becomes far easier for the 338 million citizens.

The achievement, which took seven years of hard bargaining between member governments, is expected to boost commerce. Still, the celebrations were largely muted by reality.

“A certain sense of decency keeps us from celebrating as we should,” EC Commission President Jacques Delors said.

Delors spoke of rising unemployment across Europe, the ethnic war in former Yugoslavia and grueling negotiations to achieve closer economic and political union by the end of the decade.

The EC’s troubled drive toward unity faces major hurdles again in 1993 because of lukewarm support in Britain’s Parliament and a second referendum in Denmark, which rejected the drive for union a first time in 1992.

Optimism over the market opening was also dampened by the derailing of plans for a single currency for the community and delays in bringing other European nations into the fold.

The single-market plan also fell short of its goal because passport controls are still needed in some EC nations.

Delors called on the member states “to be more at the center and more active together in world affairs that concern peace, freedom, respect and solidarity with the poor.”

Stressing the same point, Pope John Paul II lamented the turmoil in the Balkans and asked, “Can Europe keep its distance from such a situation and not feel itself summoned?”

Few EC newspapers had headlines ushering in the single market, and many editorial comments sounded morose.

“There is an image of prosperity brought on by the single market. But no one believes that EC magic will be enough for a metamorphosis from unemployment into success,” the French daily Liberation wrote.

In Italy, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro called on the nation to be patient in the face of its economic and social problems. “And listen to me: Italy will rise again!” he said.

In a symbolic action, 12 students from EC nations tried to reach the top of Mont Blanc in France to celebrate the single-market opening with Champagne atop the EC’s highest peak, but foul weather turned them back Friday.

The community has virtually finished a 1985 blueprint for tearing down barriers to trade in goods and services among the nations of Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

But Britain and Denmark have opted out of plans for a communitywide currency, slowing the drive to adopt a common monetary system.