Abstract
The Single European Act (SEA) of February 1986 was the first major revision to the treaties establishing the European Communities. It was the culmination of attempts throughout the 1980s to initiate substantial EC reform. With the decision in Milan in June 1985 by member states to convene an intergovernmental conference, a negotiation process was launched which focused on completing the internal market by 1992. The European Commission was instrumental in preparing the five-year strategy to achieve that objective.1
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Notes
The evolution of the 1985 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) which led to the signing of the SEA in Luxembourg on 17 February 1986 is discussed above, pp. 107–10. The text of the SEA is found in Treaties, 525–77.
Stanley Hoffmann and Robert Keohane, eds, The New European Community: Decision-making and Institutional Change (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), introduction; Paul Taylor, ‘The New Dynamics of EC Integration in the 1980s’, in Juliet Lodge, ed., The European Community and the Challenge of the Future (London: Pinter, 1990); A. S. Cohan, ‘Euro-texts and Euro-Thought: Changing Approaches to the Study of the European Community’, Review of International Studies 17 (1991); David Mutimer, ‘1992 and the Political Integration of Europe: Neofunctionalism Recon-sidered’, Revue d’intégration européenne/Journal of European Integration XIII, no.1 (1989); Thomas Pedersen, ‘Political Change in the European Community: the Single Act as a Case of System Transformation’, Conflict and Cooperation 27, no. 1 (1992); Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, ‘Neofunctionalism: Obstinate or Obsolete? A Reappraisal in the Light of the New Dynamism of the EC’, Millennium 20, no. 1 (1991).
Martin O. Heisler, ‘Migration, International Relations and the New Europe: Theoretical Perspectives From Institutional Political Sociology,’ International Migration Review XXVI, no. 2 (1992): 606.
Trevor Taylor, ‘Defence industries in International Relations’, Review of International Studies 16 (1990):73. Taylor’s expectation was echoed by another report on the defense industry: ‘EC 92 is one of several factors driving a sea change in the European security environment’, 1992 — Protectionism or Collaboration in Defence Procurement? (London: RUSI, 1990): 117.
Kirchner is more concerned with the impact of the SEA on European political cooperation than with specific sectors of spill-over and their institutional implications. He does not examine immigration policy or policing in security terms. However, he does consider the impact on common research, standardization, and industrial policy, and his general analysis frames the specific issues raised here. Emil J. Kirchner, ‘Has the Single European Act Opened the Door for a European Security Policy?’ Revue d’intégration européenne/Journal of European Integration, XIII, no. 1 (1989).
Furthermore, even if causal links between the SEA and pressures for greater defense collaboration could be proven, such collaboration would not necessarily indicate the creation of a unified European defence market or industrial base since much of the collaboration was with transatlantic partners. The causal relationships are further complicated by the fact that American defense firms, concerned about the dangers of Fortress Europe in the wake of the SEA, sought European collaborators in order to maintain access to European markets: ‘The irony is that the more governments give firms the freedom to shape industrial arrangements, the less European the internal market may become at an industrial level.’ (William Walker and Philip Gummett, Nationalism, Internationalism and the European Defence Market, Chaillot Paper no. 9, [Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, 1993], 38).
Among others see: Pauline Creasey and Simon May, eds, The European Armaments Market and Procurement Cooperation (London: Macmillan for CEPS, 1988); James B. Steinberg, The Transformation of the European Defense Industry: Future Trends and Prospects for Future U.S.-European Competition and Collaboration (Santa Monica: RAND, 1992).
Steinberg, Transformation, 65–74; ‘A Vision of an Entente Militaire’, Financial Times, 18 May 1987.
Cited in Robin Niblett, ‘Defense Implications of EC 92’, National Defense (December 1989).
The list is extensive and even a few examples demonstrate the intention of the Commission to play an active role in defense-firm mergers, even if they must do so through its civilian holdings: GEC/Siemens’ take-over of Plessey and the ‘Eurocopter’ proposal of DASA and Aerospatiale. See, ‘Horizontal Mergers and Competition Policy in the European Community,’ European Economy 40 (May 1989).
‘Community Plan For Arms Tariff,’ The Independent, 18 May 1988.
Exemptions included ‘tanks, helicopters, military aircraft, warships, bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines and missiles.’ (‘Community Duty May Hit Defence Bill’, The Guardian, 4 January 1989).
‘US Warns EC over Plan for Tariff on Arms Imports’, Financial Times, 1 August 1988; ‘Protests Bog Down European Import Tariff’, Defense News, 30 January 1989.
‘Privatised and State Firms Face EEC-Wide Tendering’, The Guardian, 5 December 1988.
‘IEPG Arms Directors Polish Action Plan For “Competition”’, Jane’s NATO Report, 4 October 1988; ‘Fair Return, Not Buy European, Aim of Euro-arms Program’, Armed Forces Journal International (January 1989).
For a more detailed discussion of the working groups established by the IEPG to implement these objectives see: ‘IEPF-EDIG — For an “Open” European Defence Market?’, Defence (September 1989).
‘Arms Collaboration: a New Emphasis’, Financial Times, 12 December 1988; ‘1992: A Minefield for the European Defence Industry,’ Defence (June 1989).
‘IEPG Hopes to Copy Success of Eureka Research Project,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly, 8 July 1989.
Atlantic News, 5 July 1989, no. 2137, see annexe for text of the communiqué. For an assessment of the IEPG structure and achievements see Carol Reed, ‘EUCLID: the Future of European Defence Technology’, Defence (June 1990).
Peter Ludlow, Beyond 1992: Europe and its Western Partners (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, 1989): vii.
Interview with Sir Peter Levene, then Chairman of the IEPG National Armaments Directors and Chief of UK Defence Procurement in Armed Forces Journal International (December 1989): 44.
See François Heisbourg, ‘Population Movements in Post-Cold War Europe’, Survival, XXXIII, no. 1 (Jan/Feb 1991): 36–8.
It is important to note that there is no direct or necessary relationship between immigration, refugees, and criminal activity relating to policing and anti-terrorism. However, literature in the field demonstrates that these issue areas are often conflated in both public and private debate and that both internal security and border affairs were affected by the SEA. For a discussion of the perceived relationship between immigration, crime, and internal security, see Monica den Boer, Immigration, Internal Security and Policing in Europe, Working Paper VIII, Project Group European Police Co-operation, (Edinburgh: Department of Politics, February 1993); more generally on defining refugee movements as a security concern, see Gil Loescher, Refugee Movements and International Security, Adelphi Paper no. 268, (London: Brassey’s for IISS, 1992), 3–8.
The Pompidou Group, the Group of Coordinators, the Ad Hoc Group on Immigration and other networks of police cooperation designed to manage terrorism, crime, drug-smuggling and illegal immigration are part of the developing system of internal security cooperation. Space constraints preclude analysis here except where specific policy initiatives are of relevance. For more in-depth discussion of these groupings see Malcolm Anderson, Policing the World: Interpol and the Politics of International Police Co-operation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
Guiseppe Callovi, ‘Regulation of Immigration in 1993: Pieces of the European Community Jig-saw Puzzle’, International Migration Review XXVI, no. 2 (1992): 357.
For a detailed analysis of Schengen and its institutional development see: Monica den Boer, Schengen: Intergovernmental Scenario for European Police Co-operation, Working Paper V, Project Group European Police Co-operation, (Edinburgh: Department of Politics, September 1991).
Schengen Implementation Agreement, Articles 134, 142, 140, respectively, as cited by Monica den Boer and Neil Walker, ‘European Policing After 1992’, Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 1 (1993): 5–6.
The creation of the Schengen system raises numerous issues relating to violations of privacy, democratic control, and human rights conventions. However, the focus here is on the political-institutional implications of Schengen. For important analysis of the legal dimensions see: David Freestone and David and Scott Davidson, ‘Community Competence and Part III of the Single European Act’, Common Market Law Review 23 (1986); Kay Hailbronner, ‘Perspectives of a Harmonization of the Law of Asylum after the Maastricht Summit,’ Common Market Law Review 29 (1992); H. Meijers et al., Schengen: Internationalisation of Central Chapters of the Law on Aliens, Refugees, Security and the Police (Utrecht: Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1991), 202; Patrick R. Ireland, ‘Facing the True “Fortress Europe”: Immigrant and Politics in the EC’, Journal of Common Market Studies XXIX, no. 5 (1991).
European Parliament, debates, 23 November 1989, OJ, annex no. 3–383, pp. 244–8; Bulletin, 22/11, 1989, p. 75.
Loescher, 26–, 65–6; Kay Hailbronner, ‘The Right to Asylum in the European Community’, International Journal of Refugee Law 2, no. 3 (1990): 341–6; ‘Western Europe Starts Shutting Out the Immigrants’, International Herald Tribune, 11 August 1993.
Europe, 15 June 1990. For the text see annex to Meijers, 148–54.
See Adam Roberts, ‘Terrorism and International Order,’ in Freedman et al., Terrorism and International Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul for RIIA, 1986).
‘Monitoring and controlling the flow of goods and services over national borders has formed an integral part of securing the nation. If the state can effectively regulate the entrance and exodus of persons at its borders, migration poses no threat to the nation-state; if it cannot, migration can represent a serious challenge to its sovereignty, even its security’. (Peter O’Brien, ‘German-Polish Migration: the Elusive Search for a German Nation-state,’ International Migration Review XXVI [1992]: 375).
Didier Bigo, The European Internal Security Field (Colchester: ECPR, 1992), cited by den Boer and Walker, 16.
Juliet Lodge, ‘Internal Security and Judicial Co-operation Beyond Maastricht’, Terrorism and Political Violence 4, no. 3 (1992): 4.
Keohane and Nye reach the same conclusion. Robert O. Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Conclusions: Community Politics and Institutional Change’, in Wallace, Dynamics, 292.
On the correlation between the SEA and the activism of the Washington in pursuing better relations with the EC see Reinhardt Rummel, ‘Modernising Transatlantic Relations’, Washington Quarterly 12, no. 4 (1989); Robert Hormats, ‘Redefining Europe and the Atlantic Link’, Foreign Affairs 68, no. 4 (Fall 1988).
See Geoffrey Edwards and Elfriede Regelsberger, eds, Europe’s Global Links: the European Community and Inter-Regional Cooperation (London: Pinter, 1990).
‘The Future of Europe’, Speech by George Bush at Boston University, 21 May 1989, Department of State Bulletin, vol. 89, no. 2148, July 1989, 18.
For an analysis of the Transatlantic Declaration by a senior EC Commission official see Horst G. Krenzler and Wolfram Kaiser, ‘The Transatlantic Declaration: a New Basis For Relations Between the EC and the USA’, Aussenpolitik, English edn, IV (1991).
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© 1997 Andrew Wyatt-Walter
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Wyatt-Walter, H. (1997). Internal Dynamism and the Consequences of the Single European Act. In: The European Community and the Security Dilemma, 1979–92. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14245-3_6
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