The Creation of European Supranational Institutions

Abstract

The postwar world has witnessed a proliferation of institutional forms of international cooperation.¹ Their study was long the sole preserve of international lawyers and political scientists who were the first to investigate their operation and their potential. Although many observers had expected the end of the Cold War to diminish the attraction of such arrangements, events seem to have given them new impetus. Since 1989, despite its halting progress and its fragile popular support, the EU has expanded its membership and adopted ambitious targets for economic and monetary union, foreign policy cooperation and institutional reform. For Eastern European states, membership of NATO and the EU holds greater appeal than constructing their own regional arrangements.