The Road to Maastricht: negotiating economic and monetary union

Book abstract:

The central aim of this book is to write a contemporary history of the negotiation of the EMU provisions of the Maastricht Treaty and to explain how, and why, the EC came to agree the project in 1991. It argues that the answers to these questions are to be found in a wide range of factors and a long term perspective. To recapture the experiences of those involved in the EMU negotiations, over 280 interviews were conducted, over 50 each taking place in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EC institutions. The book is fundamentally an exercise in cross-national comparison, focusing on the four key EC states and their relations with the EC Commission.
At the heart of the book are the national case studies. These empirically based narratives reveal how the EMU negotiations developed a dynamism of their own by examining the strategic moves of the players, the learning experiences that informed their discussions, and their choice of institutional routes. The motives of players are studied in depth in the context of the structural factors shaping their behaviour. Chapter 1 provides an appropriate conceptual framework for analysing the EMU negotiations. Here discussion draws on a wide range of relevant literature concerned with bargaining, public policy, institutional settings and international political economy. Chapter 16 extends the focus from the national to the European level in order to assess the role and impact of the EC Commission and of its President Jacques Delors in particular. Chapter 17 takes up the role and impact of the two EC presidencies- the Luxembourg and the Dutch. The concluding chapter includes a wider reflection on themes and issues raised by the EMU negotiations.
Drawing on a wide range of sources and unprecedented research and interiews, this is perhaps the definitive account of the negotiations that resulted in the agreement to create an Economic and Monetary Union in Europe.
Kenneth Dyson is Professor of European Studies and Kevin Featherstone is Professor of European Politics and Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration Studies, both at the University of Bradford.

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