Introduction: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives in International Political Economy and the Relevance to European Integration

Abstract

After two decades of relative stagnation, European integration experienced a dramatic revival in the mid-1980s. In 1985, the Commission published its famous White Paper, Completing the Internal Market, which proposed 300 (later reduced to 279) measures designed to facilitate progress towards the completion of the Internal Market by 1992 through the abolition of non-tariff barriers. The Single European Act (SEA) of 1987 not only spelt out the goals of the Internal Market — that is, the four freedoms of goods, services, capital and labour — but it also strengthened the supranational institutions. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), for example, became the arbiter of the Internal Market, while the European Parliament gained a second reading and the chance to influence legislation through amendments with the introduction of the co-operation procedure. In addition, the Treaty of Maastricht was signed in 1991. Amongst other changes, it laid out the plan for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), including a single currency to be administered by a supranational and independent European Central Bank (ECB). In other words, member states decided to give up monetary sovereignty.