The phenomenon of regional integration

Regional integration schemes have multiplied in the past few years and the importance of regional groups in trade, money, and politics is increasing dramatically. Regional integration, however, is no new phenomenon. Examples of Staatenbünde, Bundesstaaten, Eidgenossenschaften, leagues, commonwealths, unions, associations, pacts, confederacies, councils and their like are spread throughout history. Many were established for defensive purposes, and not all of them were based on voluntary assent. This book looks at a particular set of regional integration schemes. The analysis covers cases that involve the voluntary linking in the economic and political domains of two or more formerly independent states to the extent that authority over key areas of national policy is shifted towards the supranational level.

The first major voluntary regional integration initiatives appeared in the nineteenth century. In 1828, for example, Prussia established a customs union with Hesse-Darmstadt. This was followed successively by the Bavaria Württemberg Customs Union, the Middle German Commercial Union, the German Zollverein, the North German Tax Union, the German Monetary Union, and finally the German Reich. This wave of integration spilled over into what was to become Switzerland when an integrated Swiss market and political union were created in 1848. It also brought economic and political union to Italy in the risorgimento movement. Integration fever again struck Europe in the last decade of the nineteenth century, when numerous and now long-forgotten projects for European integration were concocted.