ABSTRACT
The European Community (EC) finds itself internationally in a limited position, similar to the one that prevailed during the Soviet period when the EC could not defend itself without the United States. The EC is completing the first stage of its development as envisaged in founding Treaties of Rome in 1957. The EC has become what it always was – a Western EC. What is, however, clear is that the economic as well as the political potential of the EC will be totally overburdened by the urgent demands of European integration. The success of the EC rested in its initial phase on criteria of rationality for decision-making that were highly instrumental, generally accepted, well insulated from other fields of policy, and operationalized in terms on which agreement could be found. The institutional structure of the EC has placed the Commission in a central position. The originality of the EC rests in its construction as an innovative regime of supra-national character.
