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Pragmatikos and Federalis: Reflections on a Conference1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
Extract
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT DID NOT SKIMP ITS PREPARATIONS for the European Council meeting in Milan on 28–29 June, when proposals for moves towards European Union were on the agenda for the European Community's heads of state and government. Much effort went into the ‘Howe plan’, which was seen as a model of British pragmatism: strictly practical proposals and no truck with the proposed intergovernmental conference to consider Treaty amendments or other high-faluting federalist notions. A success proportionate to the effort was certainly expected. But Mrs Thatcher left Milan without decisions on the British proposals, outvoted on the intergovernmental conference and angry with the partners who pushed her into a corner with the Dane and the Greek. It is too soon to unravel what was certainly a tangled tale, doubtless with errors all round and a generous application of Murphy's Law. But behind the tactical and political confusion, one element in the failure may have been the divergent approaches of the British and the majority of their partners to discussing the Community's future development.
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References
2 Report to the European Council of the Ad Hoc Committee on Institutional Affairs (Dooge Report), March 1985.
3 Draft Treaty establishing the European Union, European Parliament, February 1984.
4 In his speech to the European Parliament, 24 May 1984.
5 Triffin has analysed the US debt overhang in ‘The International Accounts of the United States and their Impact upon the Rest of the World’, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, March 1985.
6 To appear in Policy Studies, PSI, forthcoming.
7 The Role of Public Finance in the European Communities (MacDougall Report), Brussels, Commission of the EC, April 1977.
8 Greenwood, David, ‘Defence Policy, Procurement and Production’, mimeographed, University of Aberdeen, 06 1985 Google Scholar.
9 In line with the method adopted for recording the rest of the discussion, Dr Bogdanor’s introduction, which was not accompanied by a written paper, as it was designed in part to respond to the earlier sessions, has been amalgamated with subsequent discussion and presented as an introduction by Federalis. While written as a report of a Study Group rather than on his own account, an analysis by Bogdanor can be found in Britain and European Union, European Centre for Political Studies, Policy Studies Institute and Federal Trust for Education and Research, June 1985.
10 Bogdanor also proposes that direct election of the Commission would enhance the Community’s long‐term effectiveness and accountability. His proposal is briefly explained in Bogdanor, op. cit., p. 33.