The historical process of enlarging the Community of Six to double that number in 1986 was based on the increasing economic dynamism and success of the European Community. With the end of communism, the number knocking at the door has increased, with the countries of the European Free Trade Association leading the way. The legion of issues that are to emerge with the fourth broadening exercise—and subsequent Mediterranean and Eastern European ones—will necessitate substantial institutional changes at a 1996 meeting, but there are questions whether the new entrants will eventually conform to the integration goals of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
for the Continental perspective, see Robert Marjolin, “What Type of Europe?” in Jean Monnet and the Path to European Unity, ed. Douglas Brinkley and Clifford Hackett (New York: St. Martin Press, 1991).
2.
2. Iceland (1970), Finland (1986), and Liechtenstein (1991) joined EFTA after associate-status years.
3.
John Newhouse , De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons (New York: Viking, 1980), passim.
4.
4. Derek W. Urwin, The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration since 1945 (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 116-129, 139-145.
5.
See also Haig Simonian, The Privileged Partnership: Franco-German Relations in the European Community, 1969-84 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), esp. chaps. 4, 10, and 12.
6.
6. Herman Van der Wee, Prosperity and Upheaval: The World Economy, 1945-1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 358-379.
7.
7. The stated EC objective was to pursue both tracks, but in fact enlargement took precedence and the monetary goals were lost in the economic downturns, oil crises, and Europessimism of the 1970s.
8.
For the post-1989 period, see Peter Merkl, German Unification in the European Context (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), pp. 303-352.
9.
U.S., Cong., House, Committee on Foreign Affairs , 102d Cong., 2d sess., June 1992, pp. 127-140. One example of awareness about the new conditions and their implications is that expressed by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in his speech printed in Le Figaro, 30 July 1990. Reflecting the fear of many, he said, “If we want a close union, it must be built [first] for the Twelve. If we opt [now] for Greater Europe, one must comprehend that union will be limited and will constitute a reedition of the League of Nations for Europe.”
10.
10. Interviews with several Commission staff in early 1993 indicated that the Commissioners could not get the national governments to set additional and more precise conditions regarding enlargement, given their Maastricht worries.
11.
particularly chap. 9. For the specifics in one case, see “The Challenge of Enlargement: Commission Opinion on Austria's Application for Membership,” Commission of the European Communities, Bulletin of the European Communities, supp. (Apr. 1992).
12.
12. Bob Hagerty and Charles Goldsmith, “Efforts to Expand Could Instead Turn Out to Be Its Downfall,”Wall Street Journal Europe, 6 Apr. 1993.
13.
13. “Prospects for the Next Enlargement,”International Herald Tribune, 6 Jan. 1993.
14.
14. Hagerty and Goldsmith, “Efforts to Expand.” There are those who believe the EFTA Four will seek to avoid these reforms with the aid of France, given the Paris contention that the Common Agricultural Policy reforms need further discussions and adjustments.
15.
15. It must be noted that issues concerning neutrality status have already taken a toll in that Switzerland has hesitated at the EC gate due to foreign and defense policy problems and the confederal states' antipathy to “an ever closer union.”
16.
16. Switzerland and Liechtenstein will most likely follow the EFTA Four into the EC, and Iceland, too, if the Norwegians get adequate fishery protections in their negotiations. Malta will join without any stumbling blocks, but Cyprus, given the Greek-Turkish ethnic strife, will remain outside the EC for the fore-seeable future. Turkey will have the same fate, given the Greek attitude and the religious and human rights problems. The other Balkan and Baltic states, let alone the states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, are longer-term possibilities, meaning three decades or more, if at all.
17.
“Eastern Europe: The Old World's New World,”Economist, 13-19 Mar. 1993.
18.
See also Charles Goldsmith, “EC Considers Its Options before Difficult Convention,”Wall Street Journal Europe, 6 Apr. 1993.
19.
19. In the spring of 1993, the present author gained greater insight into the upcoming IGC issues in extensive interviews with members of the Commission task force for the present enlargement and at the following organizations: the Center for Economic Policy Studies and the Trans-European Policy Studies Association in Brussels, the European Policy Forum and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and the Institute of European and International Affairs in Luxembourg. The following points touch only lightly on the multiple problems.
20.
Neil Nugent , “The Community Integration Process Post-Maastricht” (Paper delivered at the Third Biennial Conference of the European Community Studies Association, Washington, DC, 28 May 1993).
21.
This work, along with his earlier book on the origins of the integration movement, is the most important book on the EC published in the last decade. If Milward is correct, that the EC's historic evolution has been an integral part of the reassertion of the nation-state and that without integration the Western states might not have kept the support of their citizens, then the allegiance paid to Community institutions in member states is only secondary. As he asserts, “Whenever the Community member states have had to implement their surrenders of sovereignty, they have produced an arrangement which left almost all political power with the nation-state.”Milward, European Rescue of the Nation-State, pp. 445-446.
