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THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY'S. EMERGING POLITICAL DIMENSION Michael Calingaert At Lt their historic summit meeting in Maastricht in December 1991 the leaders of the European Community (EC) agreed that the EC should "assert its identity on the international scene, in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy"; they proceeded to list its objectives, and established a decision-making process under which the EC will implement its common policies. In so doing, the Community did not branch out in an entirely new direction, but rather took another, albeit significant, step towards a united Europe encompassing both economic and political union. The EC's main objective has been to remove the political barriers between the nations of Europe and to bring about the formation of a European federation. However, it was recognized early on that only as economic barriers were removed and common economic policies developed would it become possible to have a real political union. The EC has always included a political dimension, even though of much more modest scope than its economic one. During its existence the EC has had to deal collectively with other countries or groups of countries , and has moved, even if tenuously, in the direction of establishing common foreign policies. Maastricht does not therefore signal the entry ofthe EC into a new area of activity; rather, it builds on developments in Michael Calingaert, Director of European Operations for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, is a former foreign service officer. He is the author of The 1992 Challenge from Europe (National Planning Association, 1988 and 1990). The views expressed here are his own. 69 70 SAISREVIEW the two areas to be considered below: the Community's relationships with its neighbors, and cooperation or coordination among the member states on foreign policy issues. Nonetheless, the decisions of Maastricht, and indeed the developments since the beginning ofthe decade, represent far more than a mere extension of the situation prevailing in the 1980s. Institutional changes undertaken by the EC plus four significant shocks combined to alter the situation significantly. The major institutional event was the passage of the Single European Act in 1985. This formalized the EC's foreign policy coordination and introduced weighted majority voting that has been the basis for the program to achieve a genuine single market. To build on that program, the member states decided to convene an intergovernmental conference to negotiate an economic and monetary union. This was followed by agreement on a parallel—but linked—effort to negotiate a "political union," intended not only to provide the necessary institutional structure but also to develop a common foreign policy. As for the shocks, the first was the dissolution of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, which changed the Community's economic and political relationship with the countries of that region; the second was German unification, which gave an impetus to the drive for development of a common EC foreign policy as a means of ensuring some control over a potentially domineering and/or distracted partner; the third was the Gulf War, which highlighted the EC's ineffectiveness in responding to a major conflict; and the fourth was the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, which presented the Community with an opportunity to seek to prevent civil war. All these events forced the EC to turn its attention more intensely than ever before to foreign policy issues. Changing Relationships The EC's immediate neighbors fall into three groups: the European Free Trade Association (EFTA); the countries ofEastern Europe (formerly under the domination of the Soviet Union); and the somewhat more amorphous group of near-by developing countries, notably the Arab countries across the Mediterranean from the EC. The EC's relationships with all of these are changing dramatically. Closest to the EC—with similar forms of government, economic structure, history and culture—are the members of the EFTA: Austria, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. As a group these countries are the major trading partners of the Community, although the EC is more important to them than they are to the EC. Despite their close economic ties with the EC, EFTA members had EUROPEAN COMMUNITY'S POLITICAL DIMENSION 71 consciously chosen not to seek admission...

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