The Road To Maastricht: Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union

Abstract

Structuralist explanations have dominated attempts to explain the process of European integration. However, as the negotiation of Economic and Monetary Union shows, policy leadership has been critical in launching, shaping, and sustaining this process. This leadership goes beyond policy entrepreneurship in setting the agenda to include the management of institutional venues in the pursuit of particular objectives. The Franco–German relationship emerges as a key venue that defines the scope and limitations of policy leadership and that was crucial in binding in the Bundesbank and EU central bankers to the process. At the domestic level, the political drive from Kohl and Mitterrand was decisive. Delors was a key driving force, at certain stages, both within the European Commission and as chair of the Delors Committee. Together, they acted as animateurs and ingénieurs of Economic and Monetary Union. The strategic aspect of leadership in the cases of Britain and Italy was altogether different. The Thatcher and Major governments repeatedly misjudged the commitment of their partners to proceed, and the inflexibility of their positions prevented them from building countervailing coalitions. For Italy, EMU was a test of external credibility: domestic weakness limited her overall influence on the progress of the initiative, whilst EMU was seized upon by a small leadership group as a new vincolo esterno (external constraint) to secure otherwise difficult domestic reforms. This latter strategy was replicated more widely as member states endeavored to meet the entry criteria for participation in the single currency. The outcome of the Maastricht Treaty was an imperfect agreement that generates serious future challenges for policy leadership. These challenges include cognitive gaps in EMU, institutional innovation, and imperfect legitimation.