EPTEstablishing lack of and existence of boundaries
In 1985 a new treaty was signed by Belgium, Western Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The treaty was called Schengen after the Luxembourg city it was established in. It established a gradual removal of border control on the borders between the countries. It was, however, not until 1995 that the majority of European countries signed the treaty and 1999 when it became part of official acquis communautaire de l'ue (the EU equivalent of laws).
In 1987 the Single European Act is established after Portugal and Spain joined the community. It officially established the European Political Cooperation even though it had worked unofficially since 1970. European Political Cooperation was later incorporated into EC in the Maastricht treaty 1992. The Single European Act codified an extension of the court to include a Court of First Instance to deal with less important cases. Several procedural changes were added to make the cooperation easier, the assembly as established in ECSC is officially renamed to the European Parliament, added research and environment to the commissions political areas and it laid the ground for an unnamed 1992 treaty to establish a more extensive cooperation. Denmark held a consultatory referendum which resulted in 56 % for ratification. Ireland held a referendum on a constitutional change made necessary by the Single European Act. It passed by considerable margin at 70 % for.
In 1992 came the big Maastricht treaty. The treaty introduced a broader term for the European Community – which at this time cover the treaties ECSC, EURATOM and EEC. The European Community, the common foreign policy and judiciary cooperation was officially called the three pillars and together they formed what is termed EU.
The Maastricht treaty also set a time-table for the establishment of the European Currency Union (ECU), which included establishing European Central Bank, a maximum inflation allowed, a limit on budgetary deficit, a limit on debt and a limit to how much higher than the lowest interest rates a union member can be. It also included a Citizenship of the Union, a common justice and home affairs policy. including immigration and asylum laws, customs, civil and criminal justice as well as establishing European Police Office (Europol) and a common foreign policy and security policy with a long term goal of establishing a vaguely defined “common defense”. Furthermore 6 other policy areas are added to EU: European network, youth, culture, education and vocational training as well as consumer protection.
Most of the countries ratified the treaty in parliament immediately. However Denmark and France had to vote on it, while the German constitutional council had to sign off on it. United Kingdom got an exception on the so called “social protocol” before parliamentary ratification. France held an election and the treaty was accepted by a slim margin of 51 %. Ireland again accepted by a large margin (69 %).
In Denmark the treaty was rejected by 50.3 % of the voters in a shock defeat.
The danish rejection was a particular shock since it had been sold as a “take it or leave EU”-deal. The proposed reasons for rejection are an economic crisis at the time, some unconvinced social democratic party voters (the second largest party had campaigned for a no to Single European Act in 1986!) and a particular statement from the prime minister in 1986 about the European union being “stone dead” (be aware that this is way before EU was formed, but the meaning has been interpreted as almost exactly what the Maastricht treaty brought to the table!). In contrast are more philosophical reasons like EU being elitist and undemocratic and the yes-side being categorical about the consequences of voting no to a point where voters no longer believed them.
In any case, a special treaty with 4 exceptions on defense (the no-parties had argued against united army of Europe), judiciary cooperation (a huge chunk of national influence getting moved to EU), ECU (economic crisis and more release of influence) and union citizenship (loss of future national independence) was prepared in Edinburgh for Denmark to stay in the inner market and 56.7 % ended up voting yes.
1995 marked another expansion as Austria, Finland and Sweden joined by referendums. Norway again rejected joining with 52.2 % voting no.
In 1998 a scandal started rolling. The Court of Auditors had pointed to a large amount of money that had gone missing. At the same time french commissioner Cresson had caught press coverage for allegedly having hired cronies and supporters to jobs they didn't have the necessary qualifications for. For those reasons Jacques Santer asked for an independent group of experts to investigate. The group was given 5 weeks to work. The result was pretty damning for Cresson, while the rest was an extremely harsh critique of the commission as an institution and ended up in a conclusion that “The studies carried out by the Committee have too often revealed a growing reluctance among the members of the hierarchy to acknowledge their responsibility. It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.”. Since the European parliament could not sack individual commissioners and Cresson denied any attempt of getting her to step down, the whole commission stepped down to avoid being rejected by a vote in the European Parliament. Even though some of the 97 recommendations in the ensuing report have been followed the commission/commissioners have continued to suffer from allegations of corruption and accounting irregularities to this day!
1999 saw the Amsterdam treaty enter into force. It prepares EU for a large expansion, ensures the last step towards a common currency, a resolution on growth and employment and various incremental changes. Contrary to the Maastricht treaty all referendums passed.
The same year the euro is introduced in 11 of the 15 countries. Greece joined in 2001, while Denmark, United Kingdom and Sweden all reject the euro by referendums (Denmark and Sweden) or politically (United Kingdom). The stability requirements for the EURO has been heavily criticized from the beginning and 2005 and 2011 saw significant reforms to it, while it has been further extended in 2013 to include a budgetary surveillance dimension. There are still concerns that the measures are insufficient.
Sources:
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/institutional_affairs/treaties/treaties_ecsc_en.htm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1987:169:FULL:EN:PDF
http://en.euabc.com/word/241
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/dat/11992M/htm/11992M.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/europe/euro-glossary/1216944.stm
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/institutional_affairs/treaties/treaties_maastricht_en.htm
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http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/LEQS/LEQSPaper57.pdf
