Law and Politics in the European Communities

Abstract

The establishment of the European Communities has meant that economic relations between member States have been subjected to specific legal rules embodied in the constituent treaties. It has not meant, however, that legal rules have replaced the interplay of political forces as the standards for conducting these relations. With the British application for membership of the European Communities, the French proposals for organizing closer political cooperation between member States, and the end of the first stage 1 of the transitional period in EEC, it seems useful to pay attention to the relation between legal and political factors in the three Communities. On the following pages we intend to discuss some aspects of this relation, focussing attention on the existence of conflicting or convergent trends in the evolution of law and politics in the Communities. After a brief survey of some characteristics of the law of the treaties and politics in the Communities, we shall inquire into the extent to which the law can serve as an instrument of integration in the evolution of relations between member States.