Abstract
The collapse of communism in the fall of 1989 coincided with a very dynamic period in the Community’s history, what with the drive to complete the single European market and plans for an economic and monetary union. The Community manifested a new assertiveness.1 There was a general expectation, both within the Community and outside it, that the Community would be a ‘cornerstone’ of the new European architecture. It had the right instruments to match the East European states’ priorities of economic reform, trade with the West, and inclusion in ‘Europe’. This expectation of Community leadership, however, took time to develop. In the spring of 1989, after months of hesitation, the member states finally agreed that there should be a common, consistent approach to Eastern Europe. The Community was thus in a position to take the lead in responding to the astounding events of autumn 1989.
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Notes
Norms are ‘shared (thus social) understandings of standards for behavior.’ Audie Klotz, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle againstApartheid (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 14.
See Franck, ‘Belgium: The Importance’, pp. 152–3 and Christian Franck, ‘Belgium: Committed Multilateralism’, in Christopher Hill, ed., National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), pp. 86–7.
Andriana Ierodiaconou, ‘Foreign Ministers Split Over Response to East Bloc Reform’, The Financial Times, 17 October 1988.
Document no. 88/490, 3 December 1988, EPC Documentation Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 2, 1988.
Jacques Delors, ‘Statement on the Broad Lines of Commission Policy’ in EC Bulletin Supplement 1/89, p. 12.
Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of 89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 14.
Agence Europe no. 5044, 26–7 June 1989.
Document no. 89/178 in EPC Documentation Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 1, 1989. An indication of the Commission’s growing role in EPC was the more frequent usage of ‘the Community and its member states’ in declarations on Eastern Europe.
‘Political Declaration concerning East-West relations, released at the Paris meeting of industrialized countries, held on 14 to 16 July 1989’, Document no. 89/184, EPC Documentation Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 2, 1989. The Commission’s management of this aid programme is discussed in Chapter 4.
As Jeanne Kirk Laux maintains in Reform, Reintegration and Regional Security: The Role of Western Assistance in Overcoming Insecurity in Central and Eastern Europe, Working Paper no. 37 (Ottawa: Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, 1991), p. 5.
Peter Ludlow, ‘The Politics and Policies of the European Community in 1989’, in Centre for European Policy Studies, The Annual Review of European CommunityAffairs 1990 (London: Brassey’s, 1990), p. xlvii.
Simon Nuttall, ‘The Commission: The Struggle for Legitimacy’, in Hill, ed., The Actors, p. 142.
Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, pp. 280–1.
Agence Europe no. 5141, 29 November 1989.
Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, p. 277. After Maastricht, the working groups were merged.
EC Bulletin no. 9, 1989, pts. 2.2.10–11.
EC Bulletin no. 11, 1989, pt. 2.2.19. Such impromptu presidencyCommission joint visits were the product of cooperation between the French presidency and the Commission. This probably reflected France’s desire that the Community (and France) play a highly visible role in Eastern Europe and balance Germany’s potential dominance there; collaboration with the Commission was also a way of keeping it in check.
Barbara Lippert, Rosalind Stevens-Ströhmann, et al., German Unification and EC Integration: German and British Perspectives (London: Pinter, 1993), pp. 12–13.
EC Bulletin no. 11,1989, pt. 2.2.15.
Senior Nello, Recent Developments, pp. 30–1.
Peter Balazs, ‘Trade Relations between Hungary and the European Community’, in Marc Maresceau, ed., The Political and Legal Framework of Trade Relations between the European Community and Eastern Europe (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1989), p. 65.
EC Bulletin no. 4, 1987, pt. 2.2.28.
David Buchan, ‘Hopes Rise for Trade Deal with Hungary’, The Financial Times, 23 March 1988.
Agence Europe no. 4765, 16 April 1988 and Senior Nello, Recent Developments, p. 28.
David Buchan, ‘Outlook for EC-Hungary Accord Brightens’, The Financial Times, 14 June 1988.
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© 2004 Karen E. Smith
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Smith, K.E. (2004). Developing a Common Foreign Policy Towards Eastern Europe, 1988–9. In: The Making of EU Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230536784_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230536784_3
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