An Assessment of the EC Future

Abstract

The European Community is presently experiencing a period of relative gloom due partly to the current economic stagnation in Europe but also to doubts about the Maastricht Treaty and the inability of the Community to do anything effective with respect to the war in the former Yugoslavia. There are, however, longer-term indications of a more robust Community, particularly as the dynamic impulses generated by the unified market implementing the Single European Act begin to work through European economies. Dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have presented new problems reflected, for example, in the dilemma of deepening or widening the Community. The near collapse of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in July-August 1993 and continuing speculation on the monetary exchanges may actually provide a further argument for monetary union. Community relations with the United States have remained ambiguous, with continued American support for European integration in the abstract clashing with specific trade disputes.

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References

1. Ever since my assignment in 1952 to the Bruce Mission in Paris, a primary function of which was to persuade the French to ratify the Treaty Establishing a European Defense Community, I have followed closely, both as an official and as a scholar, the process of European integration. Unless otherwise indicated, this article is based largely on my own recollections, impressions, and continuing personal contacts.

For a description of the Maastricht Treaty, see Martin J. Hillenbrand , “European Community: Prospects and Problems,” Global Review, 1(1):8-9 (Spring 1992).

3. He was Chancellor at the time, and I was the U.S. Ambassador in Bonn. Having incited a negative reaction, he did not press the point.

4. See Wynne Godley , “Maastricht and All That,” London Review of Books, 9 Oct. 1992, p. 3.

5. See Le Monde, 29 Mar. 1993.

6. Axel Krause , “The Single Market Takes Off,” Europe, p. 19 (Feb. 1993).

7. European Political Cooperation (EPC), 5th ed. (Bonn: Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, 1988), p. 14.

8. Pierre-Henri Laurent , “Western European Integration and the End of the Cold War,” in The End of the Cold War, ed. David Armstrong and Erik Goldstein (London: F. Cass, 1991), pp. 147-164.

9. For a somewhat different point of view, see “Europe's Hard Core,” Economist, 21 Nov. 1992, p. 72.

10.

10. Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 25 Feb. 1993.

11.

11. By chance, I happened to be in Paris, Frankfurt, and London during the fateful week beginning 13 September 1992, when all this came to a head. The group of American institutional investors I was accompanying met with central bank officials in both Paris and Frankfurt and in London with the Minister of State of the British Treasury.