The Single European Act: Revitalising European Integration

Abstract

The Single European Act (SEA) is an unassuming name for a far-reaching reform of the Rome Treaty, a reform that helped revitalise political and economic integration in the late 1980s and that paved the way for the launch of the European Union in 1993. Yet when national leaders concluded the SEA at a summit in Luxembourg in December 1985, the title of the accord seemed appropriate for an outcome that greatly disappointed proponents of ever closer union. Hopes that the 1985 intergovernmental conference (IGC) would result in a treaty on European Union crumbled in the face of widespread uncertainty over what, exactly, European Union meant, and over most governments’ unwillingness to go beyond seemingly narrow treaty amendments. Even so, the substance of the SEA was impressive, given the difficulty of revising the Rome Treaty and moving the European Community in a more federal direction.