ABSTRACT
At the end of the 1980s Europe was preparing for 1992 and the creation of the single European market; the forecasts were upbeat (Cecchini 1988) with predictions of large-scale job creation, enhanced international competitiveness and a smooth development towards monetary union based upon the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The changes in regimes in Eastern Europe and the former USSR were already underway but the impact on the world economy and on specific countries and regions of the EU was not yet apparent. The Community seemed poised on the brink of a major push to extend the benefits of the market to European citizens through the implementation of the European charter of fundamental social rights. With the commitment to equal treatment firmly established in the 1959 Treaty of Rome and reaffirmed in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the prospects for equality appeared propitious.
