ABSTRACT
Mitterrand wanted to have at the head of the European Commission a confident and efficient politician who shared his views about integration. Delors, who had been serving in Mitterrand's Administration as the minister of economics, finance, and budgetary affairs since 1981, was a European federalist. The European Parliament had already gained joint decision-making right, but it also had very few experts and advisors on staff, and the highly technical issues under consideration required tapping outside expertise. In the EU legislative process, regulations being proposed by the Commission and the Parliament are open for amendments. The 1970s and 1980s essentially incubated a new political culture and Zeitgeist, an amalgam of triumphant neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and postmodern culture and ideology. As a major element of the Community's all-European answer to globalization and relative technological backwardness, the Commission followed European corporations in embracing cooperative research and development (R&D). Corporate efforts and the European Community's assistance succeeded in integrating key R&D activities within the Community.
