The New European Community; European Community: The Building Of A Union
In the first volume, first-rate observers and participants provide a highly useful account of the changes that have taken place in the European Community, largely in the context of the Single European Act. Separate essays describe, inter alia, the EC Council, the "democratic gap" (for example, the degree to which "pooled sovereignty" has diminished accountability) and the European Court of Justice. Peter Ludlow's chapter on the European Commission and its role under Jacques Delors in giving European institutions a strong new impetus is particularly valuable. Introductory efforts to find theories to account for new realities are a bit cumbersome. The John Pinder volume is a concise and valuable short history of the Community, with a prescription for a "neo-federalist" future.
Related
Before Europe loses its nerve, Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac should disregard the Maastricht deficit targets and declare monetary union between their countries.
A new book argues that blunt economic self-interest, not political idealism, was the great historical motor behind European integration.
The battle for the common currency may be remembered as one of the more useless in Europe's history. The euro is hailed as a solution to high unemployment, low growth, and the high costs of welfare states. But the deep budget cuts required before integration are already causing pain and may trigger severe recessions. If the European Monetary Union goes forward, a common currency will eliminate the adjustments now made by nominal exchange rates, and the central bank will control money with an iron fist. Labor markets will do the adjusting, a mechanism bound to fail, given those markets' inflexibility in Europe.

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