Fifteen into One? The European Union and Its Member States. . - Reviews - book review

Contemporary Review, June, 2003

Fifteen into One? The European Union and Its Member States. Wolfgang Wessels, Andreas Maurer and Jurgen Mittag, editors. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]17.99 p.b. 472 pages. ISBN 0-7190-5849-X. This collection of eighteen essays, written by twenty-two European and two British political scientists, examines 'if, and to what extent, the European Union's political system has changed since the Maastricht Treaty came into force'.

The contributors look not just at the E.U. bureaucracy but at the work of national governments. The collection begins with a two-part extended introduction. This examines the relationship between Brussels and the member states and the development of the E.U. over the years. The second and much larger division contains essays looking at each nation in the E.U. and its developing relationship with the central bureaucracy. One drawback of this collection, which the editors acknowledge, is that the essays were written in 2000 and there has been much water under the Euro-bridge since then. Not least among these are the increasing dislike of the E.U. among British voters, HM Government's reluctance to surrender sterling and the growing fear that the Franco-German hegemony that has controlled the organisation may be threatened by new arrivals, assuming France lets them enter. Finally the behaviour of France and Germany (anxious to protect their investments and involvement in Iraq) over the Anglo-Australian-American action against Saddam Hussein means that the cosy world examined here may be a thing of the past.