European Integration in the 1980s: on the Way to Maastricht?

Abstract

the fusing of the two Germanys, and the birth of the single currency, are intimately intertwined. If unification had not happened, it is highly unlikely that France would have been able to persuade [German Chancellor] Kohl to agree the EMU timetable to replace the D-Mark by the Euro'. 1 This article does not seek to reject entirely the link between the Maastricht Treaty and the geo-political revolution of 1989-91. As other contributors to this special issue will make clear, the intra-European politics of 1989-91 were crucial in determining the exact shape and timing of the Treaty, and such politics could not but be influenced by the end of the Cold War and the transformation of Germany. It will however suggest that as important, if not more important, in determining the fundamental shape and contents of the 1991 Treaty, as well to some extent its timing, was the longer term trajectory of European integration, stretching back at least as far as the early 1980s, if not further. No complete explanation of what happened amongst the Twelve in 1990-91 is possible without extensive acknowledgement of the trends and directions of the integration process that had developed during the preceding decade. Multiple pressures for extensive Treaty change had already accumulated by early 1989 and it was hence always likely that many in Brussels and beyond would be campaigning for radical advance in the years that followed, albeit with no absolute guarantee of having all of their ambitions fulfilled. To put it slightly differently, 'Europe' was on the move well before the geo-political transformations of November 1989 onwards.