Steps Towards an Enlarged Europe — And Their Limits

Abstract

European integration, the history of which has been marked by both successes and failures, has evolved in two directions, namely in depth and in breadth ; moreover, these vectors have often proved contradictory. The more stringent the demands made of the members of the Community, the fewer the member states who have been able to fulfil their treaty obligations to the letter. As a typical example, at the very moment when the last of the 12 participants in the Maastricht Treaty were concluding the ratification process, only Luxembourg was able to meet the criteria imposed by the economic monetary union set up by the Community. The fact that Denmark laid down certain conditions after its two referenda, that London refused to sign the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty, that the European Monetary System (EMS) is going through a critical period, these facts all demonstrate that even when the Treaty comes into effect it will be wrong to expect that its clauses will be implemented to the full, or will conform to the intended time-scale.