https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5560-4333
![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article explores the development of all new EEC institutions between 1957 and 1992 within policy areas relevant to the possible development of a European single currency. It argues that if most institutions created pre-1992 were not crisis management institutions as would be the case post-2008, some important institutions were created in response to the perception of a structural international banking/political/economic crisis, particularly in the 1970s. This comparison in time underlines the continuity of reflections about the missing elements of a functioning single currency area, the obstacles to reform, and sheds light on the radical institutional changes that occurred post-2008.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Valerie D’Erman, Alexis Drach, Paul Schure, Amy Verdun, and Laurent Warlouzet for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716849), as well as from the SSHRC (grant number 611-2016-0153). This article was written when the author was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies during the 2017/2018 academic year.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Two exceptions to this are Knudsen and Rasmussen (Citation2008) and Rasmussen (Citation2009), who analyse the emergence of a European political system from the 1950s until the 1980s. Both chapters however focus on few and specific institutions – the COREPER and the agricultural committees – and devote more space to review the theoretical literature.
2. As a consequence, many Working Groups are excluded from this analysis. This includes, for instance, the Working Party “Harmonisation of Monetary Policy Instruments” in the Committee of Governors.
3. This affects mostly the Committee of Governors and the Monetary Committee, which both had a number of smaller groups looking at specialised policy problems.
4. Council Decision of 18 February 1974 setting up an Economic Policy Committee (74/122/EEC).
5. 70/532/EEC: Council Decision of 14 December 1970 setting up the Standing Committee on Employment in the European Communities.
6. 2004/10/EC: Commission Decision of 5 November 2003 establishing the European Banking Committee.
7. 79/279/EEC: Council Directive of 5 March 1979 coordinating the conditions for the admission of securities to official stock exchange listing.
8. 85/611/EEC: Council Directive of 20 December 1985 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS).
9. 91/675/EEC: Council Directive of 19 December 1991 setting up an insurance committee. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Committee later replaced the Insurance Committee, following Commission Decision 2004/9/EC.
10. 63/688/EEC: Rules of the Advisory Committee on Vocational Training. Jeff Kenner, EU Employment Law: From Rome to Amsterdam and Beyond (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2003), pp.8–9.
11. 74/325/EEC: Council Decision of 27 June 1974 on the setting up of an Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work.
12. As well as one stillborn institution, the European Monetary Fund, envisaged when the European Monetary System was introduced in 1979, but never created.
13. The two other major cases in point, that fall beyond the scope of this article, are political cooperation (EPC), and judicial cooperation (TREVI).
14. Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC). 05.04.1973, n° L 89 “Regulation (EEC) No 907/73 of the Council of 3 April 1973 establishing a European Monetary Cooperation Fund”, p. 2–5.
15. 74/122/EEC: Council Decision of 18 February 1974 setting up an Economic Policy Committee.
16. 90/141/EEC: Council Decision of 12 March 1990 on the attainment of progressive convergence of economic policies and performance during stage one of economic and monetary union.
17. Bulletin of the European Communities. 1970, n° Supplement 11/70. Brussels: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. “Report on the realisation by stages of economic and monetary union (8 October 1970)”, p. 5–29 .
18. The Committee of Governors was set up in 1964 by a Council decision but was not formally speaking an EEC institution, although it heavily influenced the life of the EEC. 64/300/EEC: Council Decision of 8 May 1964 on cooperation between the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Economic Community.
19. This constituted indeed the very first topic of discussion of the banking coordination group in 1969 at its first meeting, see HAEC, BAC 244/1996 No.278, Compte-rendu de la première réunion du groupe de travail “coordination des législations bancaires” tenue les 23 et 24 juin 1969.
20. TNA, MH 148/1310, Note of a meeting of EEC advisory committee on training of nursing held in Brussels on 14 and 15 May 1979.
21. 71/306/EEC: Council Decision of 26 July 1971 setting up an Advisory Committee for Public Works Contracts; 82/43/EEC: Commission Decision of 9 December 1981 relating to the setting up of an Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.
22. ECB archives, Procès-verbal de la 89ème séance du comité des gouverneurs, 11 March 1975.
23. TNA, T 555/135, Commission of the European Communities, Banking Advisory Committee, Draft Future Work of the Committee, XV/78/88-EN, May 1988.