Progress and Prospects

Abstract

The draft treaty establishing the European Union is a legacy not only to the second elected European Parliament that became its custodian but also to the Community of Ten on the eve of its enlargement. The confluence of seemingly negative factors in the EC coupled with the greater assertiveness of the European Parliament during its first term meant that the draft EUT appeared at a peculiarly propitious time in spite of recurrent warnings about the EC’s inauspicious future. Crisis can, after all, foreshadow innovation and rekindle flagging determination to succeed. In the EC’s case, the EUT certainly provided an important focus for the somewhat directionless debate about European Union and the EC’s future that had been going on for several years. However, this does not necessarily mean that the EUT will secure the requisite majority for its adoption and ratification. That the prospect of the EUT’s adoption by a majority of EC member states provoked widespread discussion in official circles about the consequences of such an eventuality for the EC’s continued existence did signal that it could not be dismissed lightly. What then have been the initial political repercussions of the EUT and what political considerations affect the prospects for its adoption and ratification?

We thank Basil Blackwell for permission to use an extract of J. Lodge’s article in the Journal of Common Market Studies 22 (1984) here and above in Chapter 3.