The European Community's plan to create a single European market by the end of 1992 emphasises that this will be achieved when the Community has done away with physical, technical and fiscal barriers to trade. Physical barriers refer to frontier controls on goods and persons (eg customs, animal and plant health checks, transport restrictions). Fiscal barriers comprise all obstacles and significant distortions among member states that derive from differences in the rates of both VAT and excise duty. Any other obstacles are categorised as technical barriers (eg food compositional laws, additive regulations).