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We use the border effects methodology to study the empirical foundation of anxieties relating to construction of a “Fortress Europe.” We study to what extent imports from the United States and Japan for a representative European country have actually been subject to greater constraints than imports from other European countries, taking intra-national trade as a benchmark. Our findings show a relatively large increase in difficulty of access to the European market for Japanese and American producers during the 1980s. This pattern contrasts quite markedly with the gradual reduction in border effects within the European Union.