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Steering Europe: Explaining the Rise of the European Council, 1975–1986

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2016

EMMANUEL MOURLON-DRUOL
EMMANUEL MOURLON-DRUOL*
Affiliation:
Adam Smith Business School (North), Room 603, Gilbert Scott Building, University of Glasgow, University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ; Emmanuel.Mourlon-Druol@glasgow.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article seeks to explain the emergence of the European Council at the heart of Europe's governance between 1975 and 1986. It highlights four factors that quickly made the newly-created institution both indispensable and stable, despite concerns over the excessive reliance on the intergovernmental method in European cooperation processes. These factors were the rise of globalisation in its multi-faceted policy dimensions, a satisfactory new-found institutional balance, the public impact of societal actors’ connections with regular and frequent heads of government meetings and the democratic legitimacy issue in European integration. The article further argues that this period witnessed the de facto emergence of the three-pillar Maastricht structure and shows how the study of the early days of the European Economic Community can shed light on the current development of the European Union and the European Council after the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 25 , Special Issue 3: European Integration , August 2016 , pp. 409 - 437
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Gueben to Hommel, Conseil européen des 12–13 juillet 1976, 6 July 1976, Central Archives of the Council of the European Union, Brussels (hereafter CMA), HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.2.2.

2 On the decision to create the European Council see Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel, ‘Filling the EEC Leadership Vacuum? The Creation of the European Council in 1974’, Cold War History, 10, 3 (2010), 315–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young, John, ‘“The Summit Is Dead. Long Live the European Council”: Britain and the Question of Regular Leaders’ Meetings in the European Community, 1973–75’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 44, 3 (2009), 219–38Google Scholar; Waechter, Matthias, Helmut Schmidt und Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: auf der Suche nach Stabilität in der Krise der 70er Jahre (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2011), 78–98Google Scholar; Taulègne, Béatrice, Le Conseil européen (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1993), 61–87Google Scholar.

3 Three meetings per year were held until 1985; only two took place in 1986.

4 See, for example, Kaiser, Wolfram, Leucht, Brigitte and Rasmussen, Morten, The History of the European Union Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (New York: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar, which covers the pre-1974 period but has a wider research agenda. For reflections about the need to overcome such artificial distinctions from a political science perspective, see Foret, François and Rittelmeyer, Yann-Sven, ‘Introduction’, in idem, eds., The European Council and European Governance. The Commanding Heights of the EU (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 2Google Scholar.

5 On the wider issue of articulating global and European dimensions see Romero, Federico, ed., ‘The International History of European Integration in the Long 1970s’, Journal of European Integration History, 17, 2 (2011), 330–60Google Scholar; Bussière, Éric, ‘Régionalisme Européen et Mondialisation’, Les cahiers Irice, 9, 1 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Patel, Kiran K., ‘Provincialising European Union: Co-Operation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective’, Contemporary European History, 22, 4 (2013), 649–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 The library of the EU Council of Ministers provides a useful bibliography on the European Council: Council of the EU, General Secretariat, Central Library, Research on the European Council, the Council of the European Union, and their General Secretariat: Bibliography, Brussels, Jan. 2016, available at https://councillibrary.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/bibliographycouncil_2016.pdf (last visited 15 Mar. 2016).

10 This argument can be ‘broadened’ to the rise of institutionalised international summitry in general, see Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel, ‘“Managing from the Top”: Globalisation and the Rise of Regular Summitry, mid-1970s–early 1980s’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 23, 4 (2012), 679–703CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See Federico Romero's argument about the G7, which also applies well to the European Council: Romero, Federico, ‘Refashioning the West to Dispel its Fears: the Early G7 Summits’, in Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel and Romero, Federico, eds., International Summitry and Global Governance: The Rise of the European Council and the G7, 1974–1991 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 117–37Google Scholar.

12 Final communiqué of the meeting of heads of government of the Community, Paris, 9–10 Dec. 1974, in Bulletin of the European Communities, 12 (1974), 7–12 (hereafter 1974 final communiqué).

13 Alexandrova, Petya, Carammia, Marcelo, Princen, Sebastian and Timmermans, Arco, ‘Measuring the European Council Agenda: Introducing a New Approach and Dataset’, European Union Politics, 15, 1 (2014), 152–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alexandrova, Petya, Carammia, Marcello and Timmermans, Arco, ‘Policy Punctuations and Issue Diversity on the European Council Agenda’, Policy Studies Journal, 40, 1 (2012), 69–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See respectively Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel, A Europe Made of Money: the Emergence of the European Monetary System (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), ch. 2–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Duchaussoy, Vincent, La Banque de France et l‘État: de Giscard à Mitterrand, Enjeux de Pouvoir ou Résurgence du Mur d‘Argent? 1978–1984 (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2011)Google Scholar.

15 Puetter, Uwe, ‘Europe's Deliberative Intergovernmentalism: The Role of the Council and European Council in EU Economic Governance’, Journal of European Public Policy, 19, 2 (2012), 161–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, The European Council and the Council: New Intergovernmentalism and Institutional Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

16 See, for example, the description of European Council discussions in recent years in Cerstin Gammelin and Löw, Raimund, Europas Strippenzieher. Wer in Brüssel wirklich regiert (Berlin: Econ Verlag, 2014)Google Scholar; or the EuroComment's Briefing Notes, available at www.eurocomment.eu (last visited 13 Aug. 2014).

17 Procès-verbal de la session du Conseil européen tenue à Bruxelles les 12 et 13 juillet 1976, 21 Sept. 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.2.4. My translation.

18 Article 2 reads: ‘The European Council shall bring together the Heads of State or of Government of the Member States and the President of the Commission of the European Communities. They shall be assisted by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and by a Member of the Commission. The European Council shall meet at least twice a year’.

19 Title I, Article D, reads: ‘The European Council shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political guidelines thereof’. Article 103 mentions that the European Council could discuss economic conditions: ‘The European Council shall, acting on the basis of the report from the Council, discuss a conclusion on the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and of the Community’. Finally, article J8 states that ‘The European Council shall define the principles of and general guidelines for the common foreign and security policy. . . . It shall ensure the unity, consistency and effectiveness of action by the Union.’

20 Except perhaps for some of the institutional changes that occurred in the 1960s, see Ludlow, N. Piers, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar. Interestingly the European Council was called an ‘institution’, in spite of not being one formally yet.

21 FCO brief on European Council, Strasbourg, 21/22 June 1979, 7 June 1979, The National Archives, UK (hereafter TNA).

22 Note of Hommel, Conseil européen de Rome, 1er/2 décembre 1975, 31 Mar. 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.126.4.

23 For more details about the different legal interpretations of the European Council's place in the EEC's constitutional order, see Taulègne, Le Conseil Européen, 92–100.

24 Taulègne, Le Conseil Européen, second part; Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel, ‘Regional Integration and Global Governance: The Example of the European Council, 1974–1986’, Les Cahiers Irice, 1, 9 (2012), 91–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Taulègne, Le Conseil Européen; Mourlon-Druol, Emmanuel, ‘The Victory of the Intergovernmental Method? The Emergence of the European Council in the EEC's Institutional Set-Up, 1974–1977’, in Preda, Daniela and Pasquinucci, Daniele, eds., The Road Europe Travelled Along: The Evolution of the EEC/EU Institutions and Policies (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2010), 27–40Google Scholar.

26 The European Council commissioned these reports respectively at the Paris summit (Dec. 1974) and the Brussels meeting (Dec. 1978).

27 European Council, 6 Dec.1977, press conference, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.3.3.

28 Mourlon-Druol, A Europe Made of Money, 250–7.

29 Fiche du Conseiller technique, présidence de la République, la structure du traité, 6 Dec. 1991, Archives nationales, site de Pierrefitte (hereafter AN), 5AG4/PHB8 dossier 4.

30 On this point see Wallace, Helen, ‘The Institutions of the EU: Experience and Experiments’, in Wallace, Helen and Wallace, William, Policy-Making in the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 56Google Scholar.

31 To these two texts could also be added the 1981 London report on EPC, which confirmed the role of the European Council in EPC, and the 1983 Stuttgart Solemn Declaration, which formalised the regular visit of the European Council's president at the European Parliament once a year.

32 Official Journal of the European Union, European Council Decision of 1 December 2009 adopting its rules and procedures, 2009/882/EU. It is also interesting to note that the very expression of ‘President of the European Council’ had currency already in 1975, long before the creation of the permanent position set out in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.

33 Procès-verbal de la session du Conseil européen tenue à la Haye les 29 et 30 novembre 1976, 14 Jan. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.3.4.

34 This exchange of letters is available in CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.2.

35 London declaration on the organisation of European Council meetings, 30 June 1977, in Bulletin of the European Communities, 6 (1977), 83.

36 On the relationship between the European Council and EPC/political cooperation, see Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, ‘More than a Prestigious Spokesperson: The Role of Summits/the European Council in European Political Cooperation, 1969–1981’, in Foret and Rittelmeyer, The European Council and European Governance, 43–52.

37 The issue of overlapping of international fora was, for instance, well reflected in an internal note of the French Foreign ministry, see Instances dans lesquelles sont abordées les questions relatives au terrorisme, à la drogue et aux contrôles des frontières, 3 Dec. 1986, Archives du ministère des affaires étrangères français (hereafter AMAE), Direction des affaires économiques et financières (hereafter DAEF), 2499, Direction des affaires juridiques.

38 Zampoli, Davide, ‘I primi passi della cooperazione politica europea: problematiche ed evoluzione istituzionale’, in Varsori, Antonio, ed., Alle origini del presente. L'Europa occidentale nella crisi ddegli anni settanta (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2007), 169–92Google Scholar.

39 Nuttall, Simon, European Political Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 For more details see Mourlon-Druol, ‘More than a Prestigious Spokesperson’.

41 Conseil européen de Londres, 26–27 novembre 1981, résultats politiques, AMAE, DAEF 4972.

42 Gueben to Hommel, Conseil européen des 12–13 juillet 1976, 6 July 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.2.2.

43 Garavini, Giuliano, ‘The Battle for the Participation of the European Community in the G7 (1975–1977)’, Journal of European Integration History, 12, 1 (2006), 141–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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45 Ludlow, N. Piers, ‘Relations with the European Council’, in Bussière, Éric et al., eds., The European Commission 1973–1986: History and Memories of an Institution (Luxembourg: Publications Office, 2014), 207–12Google Scholar.

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47 European Council, 6 Dec. 1977, press conference, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.3.3. On Jenkins’ very conscious use of the European Council in the EMS negotiations, see Mourlon-Druol, A Europe Made of Money, 160–2.

48 See Endo, Ken, The Presidency of the European Commission under Jacques Delors: The Politics of Shared Leadership (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Werts, The European Council, 2008 edn, 49.

49 Note d'information sur les travaux de l'Assemblée, Communications du Président du Conseil et du Président de la Commission, 18 Mar. 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.124.5.

50 Report on European Institutions presented by the Committee of Three to the European Council, Oct. 1979, 20.

51 Invitation du Président du Parlement européen au Conseil européen, 22 June 1984, AMAE, DE 4974, Direction d'Europe.

52 Speech by secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth office, 3 July 1981 and déclaration du Conseil européen à la suite de la réunion de Londres, 16 Dec. 1981, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1981.3.4.

53 Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC). Debates of the European Parliament. 30.06.1983, n° 1- 301. ‘Report by Helmut Kohl to the European Parliament (30 June 1983)’, 16–21.

54 Report on European Institutions presented by the Committee of Three to the European Council, Oct. 1979, 15.

55 Point 1 of the Draft Act reads: ‘The decision-making structures of the European Communities and European political cooperation shall be brought under the responsibility of the European Council. The European Council shall be the source of political guidance of the European Community and of European political cooperation.’ In German-Italian initiative, Draft European Act, Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 11/1981; document 114112, Stuttgart European Council: Presidency Conclusions, 19 June 1983, Margaret Thatcher Archives (hereafter MTA). See also Ad hoc committee for institutional affairs, Report to the European Council, 29–30 Mar. 1985, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1985.

56 Meeting of heads of government, Dublin, 10–11 Mar. 1975, Taoiseach's opening remarks, speaking notes, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.124.3.

57 Record of a meeting of the European Council, Luxembourg, 1–2 Apr. 1976, TNA, PREM 16/853.

58 Andreotti to Giscard, 6 Feb. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.2.

59 Tableau synoptique, 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.2.

60 Ibid.

61 Opening of the meeting, 21 Mar. 1983, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1983.1.2.

62 Jorgensen to Giscard, 24 Feb. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.2.

63 Declaration of M. Jenkins at the European Parliament, 6 July 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.2.5.

64 Based on the various calculations provided by the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers. The five figures marked with an asterisk are the author's calculations based on the full list of the journalists’ names provided by the Council (Brussels, Dec. 1978; Strasbourg, June 1979; Luxembourg, Apr. 1980; Maastricht, Mar. 1981; Brussels, Mar. 1982), while the remaining figures are those already calculated by the Council itself.

65 Record of conversation between the president of the European Commission and the French prime minister, 19 Nov. 1977, Historical Archives of the European Union (hereafter HAEU), Fonds Émile Noël (hereafter EN), 1143.

66 Meyer, Jan-Henrik, The European Public Sphere: Media and Transnational Communication in European Integration 1969–1991 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), 105Google Scholar. Meyer's study focuses on a selection of important European Council meetings (Paris 1974, Brussels 1978, Luxembourg 1985, Maastricht 1991 and The Hague summit of 1969).

67 Schwaiger to Seingry, 23 June 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.1.

68 Questions relatives à la presse à tenir en considération lors de la préparation de la réunion des Chefs de Gouvernement à Bruxelles, 22 May 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.1.

69 Accréditation de presse, Conseil européen de Maastricht, Mar. 1981, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1981.1.1.

70 See http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/index.cfm?sitelang=en (last visited 30 July 2014).

71 Rasschaert to Moro, 6 July 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.6. My translation.

72 Fricchione to Hommels, Demande d'audition d'une délégation de la Confédération européenne des syndicats au Conseil européen, 10 July 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.6.

73 Fricchione to Hommels, Rencontre entre les représentants de la Confédération européenne des syndicats et M. le président Moro, 15 July 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.6.

74 Press communiqué of the ETUC, 13 July 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.2.5.

75 Procès-verbal de la session du Conseil européen tenue à Rome les 25 et 26 mars 1977, 12 Apr. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.4.

76 See respectively Huvelin to Moro, Avis sur les matières premières, 11 July 1975, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1975.125.6 and UNICE, Press release, European Council 1–2 April 1976: Report of Mr. Tindemans on European Union, 26 Mar. 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.1.6.

77 See respectively LECE, Résolution en vue du Conseil européen des 29 et 30 novembre 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.3.5; UNICE Resolution in connection with the European Council, 26–27 Nov. 1981, Recommendation of the European League for Economic Cooperation to the European Council in Athens, 15 Nov. 1983, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1981.3.4; CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1983.3.5.

78 Fransen to Schmidt, 29 Nov. 1978, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1978.3.7.

79 Letter of Angel and Wagner, Manifestation européenne publique à Luxembourg le 1er avril 1976, 9 Mar. 1976, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1976.1.6.

80 Chizzola (Secretary General of the UEF) to Tindemans, Pétition au Conseil européen, 5 Dec. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.3.6.

81 European Council, 6 Dec. 1977, press conference, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.3.3.

82 Sail for Europe to Callaghan, 25 Mar. 1977, CMA, HICA.H.CM2 CEE, CEEA.1977.1.6.

83 For a recent overview, taking into account a longer time-span, see Sternberg, Claudia Schrag, The Struggle for EU Legitimacy: Public Contestation, 1950–2005 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Moravcsik, Andrew, ‘Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 40, 4 (2002), 603–24Google Scholar; Follesdal, Andreas and Hix, Simon, ‘Why There Is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 44, 3 (2006), 533–62Google Scholar; Schmidt, Vivien A., ‘Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and “Throughput”’, Political Studies, 61, 1 (2013), 2–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Majone, Giandomenico, ‘Europe's “Democratic Deficit”: The Question of Standards’, European Law Journal, 4, 1 (1998), 5–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scharpf, Fritz Wilhelm, Governing in Europe Effective and Democratic? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tsakatika, Myrto, ‘Governance vs. Politics: The European Union's Constitutive “Democratic Deficit”’, Journal of European Public Policy, 14, 6 (2007), 867–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a historical perspective on the concept, see Conway, Martin and Romijn, Peter, ‘Introduction’, Contemporary European History, 13, 04 (2004), 377–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 On the post-2008 analysis, see in particular a special issue of the JCMS: Blauberger, Michael, Riekmann, Sonja Puntscher and Wydra, Doris, eds., ‘Symposium: Conventional Wisdoms Under Challenge – Reviewing the EU‘s Democratic Deficit in Times of Crisis’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 52, 6 (2014)Google Scholar.

85 A recent discussion of these issues can be found in Vauchez, Antoine, Démocratiser l'Europe (Paris: Seuil, 2014)Google Scholar.

86 Lindseth, Peter L., Power and Legitimacy: Reconciling Europe and the Nation-State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 See the European Union Report of 1975, produced by the European Commission, and the Tindemans Report of 1976, written by Belgian prime minister Leo Tindemans.

88 Note of Schmidt, EG-institutionelle Ergebnisse meiner Vier-Augen- Gespräche mit Premierminister Wilson und Staatspräsident Giscard d'Estaing am 24. Juli bzw. 26. Juli 1975, 27 July 1975, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK), B136/17144.

89 Werts, The European Council, 1992 edn, 192.

90 Discussion between heads of government after dinner on 5 December 1977, TNA, PREM16/1640.

91 A distinction is made here between Brussels understood as the capital of Belgium (EEC member state) and Brussels as the EEC capital (author's calculations).

92 For a wider discussion on the role of independent institutions in European integration, see Vauchez, Démocratiser l'Europe.

93 Lindseth, Power and Legitimacy, 21–2.

94 It should also be noted that part of the European Council's own legitimacy in the EEC institutional set-up comes from the fact that it always respected the Treaties of Rome. Without any doubt, this explains why smaller member states and the European Commission never really opposed the emergence of the European Council in the 1970s and 1980s.

95 Hayward, Jack E. S., Leaderless Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 PV (Conseil) de la session du Conseil européen tenue à Bruxelles les 4 et 5 décembre 1978, Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (hereafter CADN), Représentation permanente de la France auprès de la CEE (hereafter RPCEE), 1167.

97 CAB/128/64/16, 26 Oct. 1978, 4, TNA.

98 Conseil constitutionnel, Décision n°78–99 DC du 29 décembre 1978, available at www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-decisions/acces-par-date/decisions-depuis-1959/1978/78-99-dc/decision-n-78-99-dc-du-29-decembre-1978.7697.html (last visited 15 Aug. 2014). My translation.

99 On the specific case of EPC see Øhrgaard, Jakob C., ‘“Less than Supranational, More than Intergovernmental”: European Political Cooperation and the Dynamics of Intergovernmental Integration’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 26, 1 (1997), 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 van Middelaar, Luuk, The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 18–24Google Scholar.

101 Speech of Angela Merkel at the College of Europe, 2 Nov. 2010, available at http://www.coleurope.eu/template.asp?pagename=speeches (last visited 16 June 2015).

102 For a recent reflection on the state of the historiography in this respect see Badel, Laurence, ‘Milieux Économiques et Relations Internationales: Bilan et Perspectives de la Recherche au début du XXIe Siècle’, Relations internationales, 157, 2 (2014), 3–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.