ABSTRACT
The process of economic and political integration within Europe is a highly complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. Nevertheless, most interpretative accounts of the integration process line up into one of two opposing schools of thought. On the one hand, there are those accounts which view the process as one of liberalisation. As captured by the slogan, ‘Europe is now open for business’, a previously inward-looking and regressive constellation of national economies has apparently been opened up to competitive forces to create a single economic market running the length and breadth of Western Europe. Considerable economic efficiency gains have been, and will continue to be, realised as formerly protected markets are ‘purged’ and forced to adjust to a pan-European level of competitiveness, as weaker firms and institutions fade and die, bequeathing their markets and revenues to stronger and fitter economic agents (Thompson 1992). This interpretation of events gained ascendency throughout the 1980s, due in large measure to the primacy of neo-liberal ideology within the states of the EC and their advocacy and installation of the Single European Market programme, which culminated in the ‘bonfire of controls’ ignited on 1 January 1993 (Grahl and Teague 1989, 1990).
