BRUSSELS, Dec 31: At midnight on December 31, boys and girls are to flash more than 1,000 points of light across the European Community to celebrate the EC's single market. But their eiders will be more restrained, writes AFP.

The teenagers will light beacons to bid farewell to the old Europe ''with its trade barriers, bureaucracy and borders and step into a new age of democratic unity and freedom," says the scouting movement which is organising the event.

Nothing else has been planned to market the fruition of the single market and the dismantling of many barriers to the free movement of people, goods, sc vices and capital throughout the EC which was set in motion th 1985.

Jacques Delors, the EC 's chief executive who more than anyone else Is responsible for the single market, has said that too much celebration, would be out of place In a community with 15 million out of work, and with a war raging on its doorstep tn former Yugoslavia.

Delors recognised that the single market offers no magic solution to

Europe’s problems. It will also be smaller than planned, including 345 million people in 12 of the wofld's richest countries.

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) — Austria. Sweden, Norway, Switzerland. Finland, Iceland and Liechtenstein — n)issed the January 1 target for inclusion into the world's biggest common market.

So what will change on January 1? Britons will be able to flock to France, or Danes to Germany, to buy as much lower-taxed alcohol, tobacco and other products as they can prove Is for personal use.

Trucks will be able to thunder across land borders between EC countries without filling In reams of customs documents.

But passport checks are not about to disappear within the borders of the new Europe. They will continue at land .crossings and ports at least until mid-1993 for most EC countries, and at airports until the end of next year.

EC residents can move freely around the community In search of work. Their qualifications will be broadly recognised in all EC countries.

But they will still need residence and working papers if they move from

their homes to another EC country. Income taxes, social security and health care will remain the preserve of national government.

As for non-EC residents, once they have been accepted as travelers into one EC country they will find it easier to cross borders into the others.

Nobody expects the single market to Creduce an explosion of cross-border usiness to match a surge of cross-border Investment which occurred during the good economic times of the late 1980's.

Two of the most powerful tools of the single market have been in operation for some time — laws to curb monopolies, cartels and excessive state subsidies. plus the gradual harmonisation of technical standards.

Thus business has become more competitive and efficient. Identical goods can be made and sold throughout the EC with far greater economies of scale.

On January 1, banks will have greater freedom to set up throughout the EC restrictions on capital movements were removed two years ago.

But for the man in the street, there

still won't be much change in the long, expensive and frustrating process of moving small sums from one EC country to another.

Personal life insurance and investment services could become cheaper and more efficient when insurance companies and stockbrokers get the right to operate throughout the EC in the mid-1990 s .

But the EC has made little progress in setting up a universal company statute, because member countries could not agree to have worker representatives on boards of directors.

Other barriers to a true single market will remain, such as controls on the cross-border movement of new cars. Protectionist curbs on imports of Japanese cars will not be dropped until the turn of the century.

Country-to-country telephone calls will remain expensive because telecommunications monopolies have remained largely intact

Although air transport is slowly being deregulated, Europe's passenger fares — twice as high as In the United States — are not expected to drop much. There will be no full competition between airlines until 1997.