Abstract
This article explores how a specific strand of neoliberal-oriented intellectuals, namely those who revolved around the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS), conceptualised the EEC policies between the 1980s and the early 1990s. In particular, this contribution considers two MPS general meetings, respectively held in 1982 and 1990, which were dedicated to the issue of European integration. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, this article first assesses how neoliberal thinkers commented on and interpreted the EEC transformations during the 1980s. Second, it challenges the assumption according to which the run-up to the establishment of the EU was the outcome of a consolidated project of neoliberalisation of the EEC and EU institutions. Finally, this article shows in which terms these neoliberal thinkers conceived of the depoliticisation of European institutions after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the looming end of the Cold War.
Highlights
Neoliberals and European Integration after the ‘Shock of the Global’ About thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many scholars have explored how the outbreak of the ‘global 1989’1 led Europe to lose its role as the direct and indirect epicentre of the bipolar confrontation,[2] while the dismantlement of the ‘Cold War game’ intertwined with the reconfiguration of the pillars upon which the process of European integration had been built since the end of the Second World War
This article explores how a specific strand of neoliberal-oriented intellectuals, namely those who revolved around the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS), conceptualised the European Economic Community (EEC) policies between the 1980s and the early 1990s
When the twelve member states of the European Economic Community (EEC) signed the Maastricht Treaty on 7 February 1992 and gave birth to the European Union (EU), the very ingredients of the European Cold War scenario seemed to be suddenly replaced by the unipolar triumph of Western narratives3 – to wit, the no longer disputable hegemony of liberal political systems combined with market-oriented economic settlements
Summary
This article explores how a specific strand of neoliberal-oriented intellectuals, namely those who revolved around the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS), conceptualised the EEC policies between the 1980s and the early 1990s. This contribution considers two MPS general meetings, respectively held in 1982 and 1990, which were dedicated to the issue of European integration. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, this article first assesses how neoliberal thinkers commented on and interpreted the EEC transformations during the 1980s.
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