ABSTRACT
Arms procurement is a subject of particular interest to students of European integration since in the Treaty of Rome it was specified as an area of government activity exempt from Community competence. However, the reasoning associated in integration theory with the concept of spillover suggests that quarantining any area of government activity from Community influence would be difficult, and indeed this exemption of defence procurement was never straightforward. By the early 1990s it was becoming ever more difficult for governments to justify treating defence equipment differently from other goods. Economic and military considerations placed significant pressures on efforts to maintain defence procurement as an activity isolated from Community business.
