CIAO DATE: 03/05

Global views on the European Union

Amitav Acharya, Marcel F. Biato, Babacar Diallo, Francisco E. González, Toshiya Hoshino, Terence O'Brien, Gerrit Olivier and Yi Wang

November 2004

The European Union: Institute for Security Studies

Abstract

Over the last 25 years, the European regional integration process has advanced very quickly on four different fronts. During the 1980s, the Common Market and its associated freedoms (free movement of goods and of persons, the right to establish and freedom to provide services) were completed. The Maastricht Treaty on European Union (TEU) of 1992 added a second dimension, when it set up a monetary union and established a European Central Bank and shared budgetary rules—a development that was eventually confirmed by the introduction of the euro in January 2002. Also in the 1990s, as a result of the creation of the European Union, which was born on 1 November 1993, a third, political dimension was developed. The Union entailed inter alia a leading role for the European Council and the various councils of ministers, some coordination of member states' foreign policies through a CFSP, and the growing importance of the European Parliament, which gradually enlarged its areas of competence.

Full text (PDF, 139 pages, 639.1 Kb)