The EC-Member State Interface: The Economic, Political and S&T Matrix 



Europeans by and large consider the evolution of the 

 Single Market to be an assured process. The relevant 

 question is how soon and how extensive will it be and 

 how pervasive in its operation. In most economic and 

 financial matters, the real arguments are over how 

 quickly to press for the diminution of national powers 

 and the harmonization of national statues and 

 regulations. Close intra-EC cooperation in S&T matters 

 is rapidly unfolding as an integral component of the 

 larger scheme of integration. Science and technology are 

 seen increasingly as the keystone of future economic 

 competitiveness and, hence, the glue which will hold 

 together the economic integration on which a unified 

 Europe will be built. The dimensions of this new 

 paradigm are far from clear to many of the principal 

 European policymakers, who themselves seem at times 

 overtaken by the pace of events. 



An Expanding Concept of Integration 



Until the adoption of the Single European Act, 

 economic integration was viewed by many, in Europe 

 and abroad, primarily as an internal process not closely 

 linked with tangential political, social or foreign affairs 

 issues. These were regarded as outside the political or 

 legal "competence" of the Community, in the context 

 either of relations among EC member states or of 

 "external" relations with non-member countries. The 

 requirements for successful economic integration, 

 however, have forced a re-evaluation of that supposed 

 independence. Increasingly, the deliberately ambiguous 

 language and deftly vague extensions of "competence" 

 embodied in the Single Act are read as an 

 acknowledgement of the very real linkages which tie 

 economic harmonization to social, environmental, 

 financial, military, foreign policy, and S&T concerns 

 and obligations. 



Apart from economic union, other major integrative 

 pushes have appeared in the past two years, notably the 

 drive for acceptance of European Monetary Union 

 (EMU) and its Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM); 

 growing demands for a common social welfare and labor 

 policy; emergence of a collective EC role, representing 

 Europe, in international affairs; and most recently, the 

 nascent initiatives for political union and Community 

 military security planning. While these efforts to unify 

 the twelve countries of the EC in functionally oriented 

 ways are held to be separate, their close kinship has been 



attested to in the past six months by senior officials on 

 both sides of the Atlantic. 



Such sentiments bring to the fore two salient aspects 

 worth consideration in the larger matrix. The rapid 

 evolution of modem economic and social systems has 

 come to depend on the benefits produced by research 

 and technology development. Conversely, research and 

 technology development needs have surfaced in linkages 

 to other, formerly quite distinct areas of public policy 

 such as education, manufacturing and commerce, 

 finance and investment, national security, health and 

 social welfare, and transportation. It is this web of 

 interdependent "raisons d'etre" of govemment which is 

 now confronting the Community in its recognition that 

 economic integration is the foundation not simply of 

 European cooperation, but of a complex new 

 architecture of relationships. Seen in this light, 

 cooperation in science and technology is both a 

 dominant component of strengthened European 

 competitiveness and a subordinate concern in the overall 

 calculus of a fully integrated Europe that possesses 

 multiple roles in the larger scheme of intemational 

 relations. 



The Challenge of German Unification 



Until the early fall of 1989, the direction of S&T 

 integration in the EC was fairly predictable; only the 

 pace and timing were at issue. That orderly, planned 

 progress has been upset by the political revolution in 

 Eastern Europe. Earlier planning for EC integration has 

 been undergoing continued revision throughout 1990. In 

 this climate, planning for science and technology is 

 subject to rapid change and is increasingly vulnerable to 

 redirection of resources. The principal causes of this 

 new instability in S&T go to the heart of what European 

 integration portends. 



Foremost is the challenge of German reunification. It 

 has been widely supposed that West Germany's 

 commitment to the EC has been predicated on the 

 existence of fundamentally opposing political and 

 economic systems in Western and Eastern Europe, 

 sustained by superpower confrontation. However, the 

 larger equation — politically and economically — has 

 changed almost overnight. Communist economic and 

 political hegemony in Eastern Europe has rapidly 

 dissolved into diverse societies whose common 

 characteristics embody trends that are, loosely, 



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