European Economic Integration in International and Historical Perspective

Abstract

The closing years of this century bear witness to the rebirth of an opportunity present at its beginning: the possibility of creating an integrated and truly pan-European market economy. That possibility derives mainly from the collapse of Communism and the beginnings of “transformation” of the “centrally planned” economies of Eastern Europe, but recent expansion of the European Union and progress toward “the single market” give further grounds for guarded optimism. The opportunity is mind-boggling, for the payoff to European integration in terms of economic growth and political stability could be enormous. It represents a great and obvious challenge to governments and policy makers in Europe, indeed, we believe, the major challenge facing those governments and policymakers today. Less obvious, perhaps, but central to the aims of this book, is the intellectual challenge which European integration poses for social science and particularly for economics. It has a dual character, related to the fact that European economic integration is at once a current problem calling for the best theoretical and empirical knowledge of the economic present we can mobilize, and at the same time the product of history, which we can only ignore at the risk of repeating history’s many disasters. The historical perspective is of particular importance here. For one hundred years ago, Europeans proved unable to transform the same opportunity for European integration into a durable supra-national structure, though some important positive steps were realized. National rivalries, then World War One and the peace settlement which followed contributed more to disintegration than to integration.1