Pierre Werner and the Werner Report

Abstract

This chapter focuses more closely on Pierre Werner’s major personal contribution to the method and substance of the Werner Report. Werner’s intellectual input, negotiating methods and consensus-building skills (via mediation and ‘network diplomacy’) were notable; in particular he proposed the three-point working method based on identifying a starting point and a final goal and examining routes between them. He was also particularly involved in the process of deepening the Werner Group’s work ahead of the final report. In terms of substance, he pushed to give the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks a leading role in monetary integration, he focused on the external dimension of EMU, and he insisted on a parallel approach that would result in a symmetrical EMU.