ABSTRACT
This chapter's focus on the economic, both the optimists and the pessimists overlook other equally fundamental elements that may act to reinforce European integration or to promote disintegration. Since the 1980s, economic change has accelerated for all member-states in both microeconomic and macroeconomic spheres. The economic adjustment has been felt more acutely by France than Germany or Great Britain. For Germany, institutional adaptation has been much easier than for France or Great Britain. Along with the Europeanization of national economic policies and profiles has come the Europeanization of national institutional structures and policy-making processes. French governments have been markedly unsuccessful in constructing a coherent, national discourse capable of projecting a convincing vision of how France fits within an integrating Europe and a globalizing world. Although Germany and Great Britain have been more successful at maintaining coherent discourses in the face of European integration, both face problems in the coming years in light of the continued pressures on economies and institutions.
