1992 and beyond

European Commission Directorate-General Human Resources And Security

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Intra-Community trade - free movement of goods

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-DIRECTORATE-GENERAL-HUMAN-RESOURCES-AND-SECURITY
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
1992 and beyond
by John Palmer
DOCUMENT NOTICE
This publication, designed to contribute to public debate on European integration, was prepared outside the Commis­
sion of the European Communities. The views expressed are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect
the opinion of the Commission.
This publication is also available in:
ES ISBN 92­826­0126­9
DA ISBN 92­826­0127­7
DE ISBN 92­826­0128­5
GR ISBN 92­826­0129­3
FR ISBN 92­826­0130­7
IT ISBN 92­826­0131­5
NL ISBN 92­826­0132­3
PT ISBN 92­826­0133­1
Cataloguing data appear at the end of this publication
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989
ISBN 92­826­0088­2
Catalogue number: CB­56­89­861­EN­C
© ECSC­EEC­EAEC, Brussels ■ Luxembourg, 1989
Printed in the FR of Germany Contents
Preface and acknowledgements 5
Chapter 1 — Setting the scene 7
Chapter 2 — The cost of 'non-Europe' 21
Chapter 3 — Relaunching Europe 37
Chapter 4 — The new agenda 4
Chapter 5 — Will it all happen? 6
Chapter 6 — Towards Europe 2000 7Preface and acknowledgements
This is a book which started off as an account of '1992' the date which has become the nearly
universal symbol of Jhe completed European internal market. In the months which followed
the invitation from the European Commission to write the book, a much wider and more long-
term debate about the future of the European Community has taken off. Inevitably, I have been
infected with the excitement which this debate has engendered and thus it has become less a
historical account of the genesis of the single market and rather more an attempt to examine
the different futures which may be on offer for the peoples of Europe up to and beyond 1992.
My thanks are due to the Commission not only for having asked me to write the book but for
having insisted that it should be a purely personal view of the future. I am grateful for having
been given complete freedom to expressl opinions and judgments — not all of which
the Commission will endorse. I must also express my warm thanks to my former colleague, Alex
Scott, for all his help in turning this project into reality and to a variety of friends working in
the European Community institutions who, alas, must remain anonymous, but who gallantly
undertook to read the manuscript and correct my grosser errors. It goes without saying that
they are in no way responsible for any residual errors of fact or judgment nor for the sometimes
controversial views I pronounce on aspects of Community affairs. Sincere thanks are also due
to Gay Kavanagh for all her efforts, without which no intelligible manuscript would ever have
emerged at all. Finally a word of appreciation to my long-suffering family and friends for putting
up with the stresses and strains of this book's gestation. Chapter 1
Setting the scene
'May you live in interesting times', says the old Chinese greeting. Well these are not just in­
teresting but exciting times to be reporting and analysing European affairs.
After years of stagnation and introspection, Europe is experiencing major economic and
political changes. There is an evident mood among peoples in most Community countries for
greater European unity. Recent steps, however hesitant, towards closer European integration
are being taken far more seriously by the outside world than at any time since the early 1950s.
I speak of 'Europe'. But of course this begs the question: what Europe? There are still several
different 'Europés' and it is as well to be clear from the start about whom we are talking. This
book deals with developments in the 12-nation European Community and specifically the pro­
ject to complete a single European market of more than 300 million people by the end of 1992.
The European Community forms the economic and political core of western Europe and is,
increasingly, also an economic and political magnet for many of the countries of central and
eastern Europe. So the story of the 1992 market — and the much wider economic, political and
social changes which are being generated in its wake — is one that intimately affects Europe
as a whole.
This is one reason why, for example, the six nations of the European Free Trade Association
are so keen to negotiate a 'common European economic space' with the countries of the EC.
And it also helps to explain both the agreement on mutual recognition by the European Com­
munity and the Council for Economic Cooperation (Comecon) and the negotiations of new
trade and cooperation agreements between the EC and individual Comecon States. Such
agreements have now been signedn the Community and both Hungary and Poland.
The single European market project is, of course, primarily, to do with the commercial,
economic and industrial life of the Community. But its evolution and the parallel policies
designed to encourage EC integration are, as we shall see, likely to transform the economies
of not only the EC countries but, to a greater or lesser extent, those of other western and
possibly even eastern European countries who seek a closer association with the Community
in the 1990s.
The decision to implement the single European market was not taken in a political vacuum. The 12 Member States of the Community have also agreed, in some cases not without con­
siderable domestic political difficulty, to amend the Treaty of Rome — the founding constitu­
tion of the EC — in ways that have put the longer term goals of European unity firmly back
on the political agenda.
One of the most important provisions of the Single European Act (SEA) is to increase the range
of political decisions taken by the EC Council of Ministers on the basis of a majority vote. The
Council of Ministers is the body in Community affairs which passes the laws on the basis of
policy proposals from the Commission and after consultation with the directly elected Euro­
pean Parliament which binds the 320 million people of the 12 EC countries.
These and other changes ushered in by the SEA — including an enhanced role in influencing
legislation for the European Parliament — and the planned implementation of the European
'social dimension' have sparked a major political debate throughout the Member States on the
longer term future of the Community. In the process many new questions are being raised about
the direction which should be taken by the Community.
Is the single market merely a matter of eliminating direct and indirect barriers to free trade and
the free movement of capital, people and services? Will the market have to be accompanied by
the extension of minimum social provision for the working people and will there have to be
greater provision for the rights of European citizens to live and work wherever they wish in the
Community?
Can you really have a single internal market subject to the same rules on competition and with
complete freedom of movement of capital without a much more developed European Monetary
System? Indeed can the Community for much longer delay having a monetary system in which
all national currencies are equally involved, in which a single European currency is progres­
sively introduced and in which monetary policy is coordinated by a supranational body such
as a European central bank?
Will the single market and these related developments leave essentially untouched the present
balance of political sovereignty between national States and the European Community? Con­
versely will these developments, to say nothing of the evolution of cooperation in policy areas
such as foreign affairs and security, not propel the Community quite rapidly down the road to
economic and eventually, to political union?
Some European Community leaders already believe something like this may have already
become inevitable. The President of the Commission, Mr Jacques Delors, told Members of the
European Parliament in June 1988, that the Community might have to develop 'the embryo
of a European government' during the 1990s and he predicted that, in any event, the Commun­
ity would be responsible for some '80% of economic and social legislation'.
It was predictions of this kind, together with the reaffirmation by other EC leaders of their com­
mitment to eventual federal union, which stimulated the intervention in the debate of the
UK Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher. Speaking in Bruges during September 1988,