ABSTRACT
In February 1986 the Heads of the governments of the twelve Member States of the European Communities signed the Single European Act1
—a treaty which introduced important reforms into the European Community system. By this Act, they declared themselves to be ‘moved by the will to continue the work undertaken on the basis of the Treaties establishing the European Community and to transform their relations as a whole among their States into a European Union’.2 The signing of the Single European Act provoked letters of protest to The Times and talk in Parliament of ‘a fundamental surrender of sovereignty’. In other quarters mostly outside Britain, however, the Single European Act was denounced for not doing enough to promote European union, and Jacques Delors, the President of the Commission of the European Communities described the Single European Act as a ‘compromise for progress’.3
