Abstract
In retrospect, the profound Euro-crisis of the 2010s cannot be explained without looking back on the period leading up to Maastricht. France’s role in that process, on which this chapter focuses specifically, was pivotal. Maastricht, in many ways, was the highpoint of forty years of French influence in European construction. Alongside the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), France was perhaps the country that influenced the most the Maastricht outcome and, as a result, the emergence and the shaping of today’s EU. At the same time, Maastricht marked the beginning of a long decline of that influence, opening the way to the country’s growing dissatisfaction with the European project, as illustrated by the narrow success of the 1992 referendum on the treaty and, even more clearly, by the rejection of the European constitutional treaty in 2005. This trend continued during the Euro-crisis of the 2010s, culminating in the dramatic French presidential election of 2017. The Maastricht saga, in other words, must be seen as a tipping point for European construction and France’s role in it. But looking back on these events is also important to assess future developments: can French influence in Europe be restored, and can the EU be fixed and relaunched, as called for by the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, since his coming to power?
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Notes
- 1.
Discours du Président de la République, Emmanuel Macron, lors de la cérémonie de remise du Prix Charlemagne à Aix-la-Chapelle, May 10, 1988, https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2018/05/10/discours-du-president-de-la-republique-emmanuel-macron-lors-de-la-ceremonie-de-remise-du-prix-charlemagne-a-aix-la-chapelle [accessed February 10, 2020].
- 2.
Allocution de Monsieur François Mitterrand, président de la République, lors de la remise du Prix Charlemagne, Aix-la-Chapelle, November 1, 1988, Institut François Mitterrand (IFM), Paris.
- 3.
In the wake of the 2009 financial crisis, the debate on the EU’s structural flaws has of course, first and foremost, gravitated around the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU): see e.g. Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016).
- 4.
For an early discussion, see e.g. Frédéric Bozo ‘The European Union at Twenty: Can Europe be Saved?” in Geir Lundestad, ed., International Relations since the End of the Cold War: New and Old Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
- 5.
The files of the French Foreign Ministry are available under a 25-year rule; those of the French presidency are largely open via a dérogation procedure, allowing for comparatively early access.
- 6.
My book on French diplomacy faced with the end of the Cold War and German unification, which appeared before the start of the eurozone crisis, generally mirrored this sentiment of French success at Maastricht: see Frédéric Bozo, Mitterrand, la fin de la guerre froide et l’unification allemande. De Yalta à Maastricht (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005), Engl. translation Mitterrand, the End of the Cold War, and German unification (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2009).
- 7.
See e.g. Bozo, ‘The European Union at Twenty”.
- 8.
See e.g. Stiglitz, The Euro.
- 9.
See e.g. Frédéric Bozo, ‘Deutsche Stärke oder französische Schwäche? Die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen angesischts der neuen deutschen Außenpolitik”, in Martin Koopmann and Barbara Kunz (eds.), Deutschland 25 Jahre nach der Einheit: Partner, Führungsmacht, Modell? Perspektiven aus dem Weimarer Dreieck (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2016); and ‘Whither Germany? Why France Matters” (Washington, D.C.: German Marshall Fund/Transatlantic Academy, 2017).
- 10.
Among the relatively recent studies of France’s role in European integration in the 1980s and early 1990s, see e.g. Georges Saunier, ‘La négociation de Maastricht vue de Paris’, Journal of European integration history, 19, no. 1 (2013), 45–65; and ‘La France et l’Acte unique européen. La politique communautaire française 1984–1988’, in Mitterrand. Les années d’alternance, 1984–1986/1986–1988, ed. Georges Saunier (Paris: Nouveau monde éditions, 2019), 307–353.
- 11.
See e.g. Michael Sutton, France and the Construction of Europe, 1944–2007: The Geopolitical Imperative (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2007).
- 12.
For a contrary view on this, see Andrew Moravcsik, ‘De Gaulle Between Grain and Grandeur: The Political Economy of French EC Policy, 1958–1970’, Parts 1 and 2, Journal of Cold War Studies, 2, no. 2, (2000), 3–43, and 2, no 3 (2000), 4–68. Moravcsik’s view of Member States’ European choices as predominantly driven by the defence of economic interests rather than geopolitical vision—a central claim in his book The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998)—has proven to be particularly controversial, especially in the French case; see e.g. the responses to his two-part article in the latter issue of the Journal of Cold War Studies.
- 13.
See Gérard Bossuat, Faire l’Europe sans défaire la France. 60 ans de politique européenne des gouvernements et des présidents de la République française (1943–2003) (Brussels: P. Lang, 2005).
- 14.
On France and the creation of the EEC, see Laurent Warlouzet, Le Choix de la CEE par la France. Les débats économiques de Pierre Mendès France à Charles de Gaulle (1955–1969) (Paris: CHEFF, 2011).
- 15.
On this, see Frédéric Bozo and Christian Wenkel, eds., France and the German Question 1945–1990 (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2019).
- 16.
The recent historiography tends to downplay the neoliberal motivations and highlight the European and Franco-German dimension of the March 1983 decision; see e.g. Laurent Warlouzet, ‘Le spectre de la crise financière de 1983. Influences et solidarités européennes’, Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, 138, no. 2 (2018), 93–107; see also Georges Saunier, ‘Le gouvernement français et les enjeux économiques européens à l’heure de la rigueur, 1981–1984’, in Milieux économiques et intégration européenne au XXème siècle. La relance des années 80 (1979–1992), eds. Eric Bussière, Michel Dumoulin and Sylvain Schirmann, (Paris: CHEFF, 2007), 109–146.
- 17.
See e.g. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Helmut Kohl: Eine politische Biographie, (Munich: DVA, 2012), 352 ff.
- 18.
Hubert Védrine, Les Mondes de François Mitterrand. A l’Elysée, 1981–1995 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 416.
- 19.
See Bozo, Mitterrand, p. 53.
- 20.
François Mitterrand, Réflexions sur la politique extérieure de la France. Introduction à vingt-cinq discours (1981–1985), (Paris: Fayard, 1986), 68–69.
- 21.
See e.g. Bozo, Mitterrand, 62 ff.
- 22.
Mitterrand-Kohl meeting in Chambord, March 28, 1987, AN, 5AG4 CD/73 dossier 1; on this, see also Schwarz, Helmut Kohl, 429 and 461 ff.
- 23.
Mitterrand-Kohl meeting in Chambord, March 28, 1987.
- 24.
Note by Bertrand Dufourcq, a/s de l’Europe d’aujourd’hui à celle de demain, February 20, 1989, Archives diplomatiques (AD), série directeur politique (DP) 1988–1991, box 305 (Turkey had applied to join the EC in 1987 and it was expected that Austria would soon follow suit, which in French eyes would entail the risk of dilution).
- 25.
Quoted in Bozo, Mitterrand, p. 99.
- 26.
Gespräch von Bundesaussenminister Genscher mit dem französichen Staatspräsident Mitterrand am 30. November 1989 in Paris, in Andreas Hilger, ed., Diplomatie für die deutsche Einheit (Munich: Oldenburg, 2011), 58.
- 27.
Quoted in Bozo, Mitterrand, p. 187.
- 28.
Meeting between Mitterrand and Kohl, 25 April 1990, private papers.
- 29.
For an account of France’s increasing prioritisation of monetary cooperation throughout the second half of the decade, see Frédéric Bozo, ‘In Search of the Holy Grail: France and European Monetary Unification, 1984–1989, in Michael Gehler & Wilfried Loth (eds.), Reshaping Europe: Towards a Political, Economic and Monetary Union, 1985–1989, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2020, pp. 283–330; and ‘La France, la RFA, et la marche vers l’Union économique et monétaire”, Relations internationales¸N° 185 (spring 2021), pp. 21–37.
- 30.
Elisabeth Guigou note for Mitterrand, Objet: UEM. Vos entretiens avec MM. de Mita (sic), Gonzales (sic) et Kohl, March 29, 1989, AN, 5AG4 EG 90 dossier 2.
- 31.
Guigou note for Mitterrand, Objet: quelques réflexions à la suite du discours du chancelier Kohl devant le Bundestag, April 28, 1989, AN, 5AG4 EG 90 dossier 2.
- 32.
Guigou note for Mitterrand, Objet: Message de M. Bitterlich, collaborateur du chancelier Kohl pour les questions européennes, October 13, 1989, AN 5AG4, EG 90 dossier 2.
- 33.
On the sequence of events leading up to Strasbourg, see Bozo, Mitterrand, 129 ff.
- 34.
Mitterrand interview with the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, March 17, 1987.
- 35.
Présidence de la République, Les progrès de l’Union économique et monétaire sous présidence française, January 23, 1990, AN, 5AG4 AH19 dossier 4.
- 36.
Ministère des affaires étrangères, Service des affaires stratégiques et du désarmement, Schéma, A/S Evolutions en Europe. Enjeux et perspectives, March 17, 1990, AD, DP 1988–1991, box 305.
- 37.
See Frédéric Bozo, ‘Mitterrand’s Vision and the End of the Cold War”, in Overcoming the Iron Curtain: Visions of the End of the Cold War, 1945–1990, eds. F. Bozo, M.-P. Rey, N. P. Ludlow and B. Rother, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012).
- 38.
MAE, le directeur des affaires économiques et financières, Pierre de Boissieu note A/S Sommet franco-allemand: l’avenir de la Communauté, August 30, 1990, AN, 5AG4 AH19 dossier 4.
- 39.
On the Maastricht negotiations, see Journal of European Integration History, 1/2013, Vol. 19, pp. 1–182, and Bozo, Mitterrand, pp. 313–31; on the EMU negotiations in particular, see Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone, The Road to Maastricht: Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); on the link between German unification and the Maastricht relance, see N. P. Ludlow, ‘Not a wholly new Europe: How the integration framework shaped the end of the Cold War in Europe’, in F. Bozo, A. Rödder and M. Sarotte, German Unification: A Multinational History (London: Routledge, 2016).
- 40.
On this, see Bozo, Mitterrand; and Frédéric Bozo, ‘France, German unification, and European integration’, in Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal, eds. F. Bozo, M.-P. Rey, N. P. Ludlow and L. Nuti, (London: Routledge, 2008).
- 41.
See e.g. Dyson and Featherstone, The Road, 251.
- 42.
Joachim Bitterlich, ‘In memoriam Werner Rouget: Frankreichs (und Europas) Weg nach Maastricht im Jahr der Deutschen Einheit (1989/1990)’, in Werner Rouget, Schwierige Partnershaft am Rhein. Frankreich-Deutschland (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1998), p. 123.
- 43.
On this, see Bozo, Mitterrand, pp. 331–333.
- 44.
Mitterrand meeting with Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, December 3, 1991, private papers.
- 45.
Mitterrand meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, May 16, 1991, private papers.
- 46.
See typically‘Der Preis der Einheit’, Der Spiegel, 39/2010, pp. 34–38; ‘Allein gegen Alle’, ibid., pp. 39–52; for a discussion of the alleged ‘quid pro quo’, see Frédéric Bozo, ‘From ‘Yalta” to Maastricht: Mitterrand’s France and German Unification’, in Bozo et al., eds,, German Unification.
- 47.
L’économie générale du projet de traité UEM (not signed), December 6, 1991, AN, 5AG4/TB61, dossier2.
- 48.
Ambassade de France en Allemagne, le ministre plénipotentiaire, conseiller financier, éditorial de la FAZ du 12 juin 1992, June 15, 1992, 5AG4, TB/64 dossier 1.
- 49.
Dumas note to Mitterrand, 14 December 1991, quoted in Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Roland, La Décennie Mitterrand, vol. 4, ‘Les Déchirements 1992–1995’, (Paris: Le Seuil, 1999), p. 244. vol. 4, p. 244.
- 50.
Guillaume Hannezo note for Mitterrand, Objet: situation monétaire, December 2, 1992, AN, 5AG4 TB/65 dossier 5.
- 51.
On this, see Frédéric Bozo, ‘The Failure of a Grand Design: Mitterrand’s European Confederation (1989–1991)’, Contemporary European History, 17, no. 3 (2008), 391–412.
- 52.
See Bozo, ‘Deutsche Stärke oder französische Schwäche?”.
- 53.
Christian Sautter note for Jean-Louis Bianco, Objet: deux remarques sur l’Union économique et monétaire, April 5, 1989, AN 5AG4/EG/90 Dossier 2.
- 54.
For a discussion, see Riccardo Brizzi and Marc Lazar, eds., La France de Macron (Rennes: PUR), 2018.
- 55.
For an early assessment of Macron’s European and foreign policies, see e.g. Frédéric Bozo, La politique étrangère de la France depuis 1945 (Paris: Flammarion, second edition, 2019).
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Bozo, F. (2023). Flawed Designs? France and the Maastricht Treaty. In: Di Donato, M., Pons, S. (eds) European Integration and the Global Financial Crisis. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06797-6_9
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