For European countries, are the worst competitors countries in the rest of the world or other European Union countries?

One it often suggested that Europe should be better protect ed from competition from countries with very low labour costs, low social welfare and insufficient standards environmental. But for European countries (we look at the situations of Germany, France, Spain and Italy), does competition mainly come from non-European countries or from other European countries? If it mainly comes from other European countries, protect ing themselves from the rest of the world will not significantly improve European’ countries situation. We measure the intensity of competition by trends in market shares and trade balances, and we see that: Germany is not suffering from competition from any region; France and Italy are suffering markedly more from competition from EU countr ies than from other countries; Spain, conversely, is suffering more from competition from the rest of the world. Germany, France and Italy therefore do not have much to gain from a protective Europe.