Christian Noyer: From Maastricht to the present and beyond Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, at the GIC / Drexel Spring 2007 Conference, Philadelphia, 16 April 2007. *  *  *  We have just passed the European Union 50th anniversary. It is a good time to reflect upon the essence and future of this extraordinary endeavor. Never before, in the whole history of mankind, have democratic nations pursued and reached, through peaceful cooperation, such a close degree of interdependence, involving, in many crucial areas, deliberate pooling of sovereignty. Of course, the process has not been without difficulties and tensions, many of which are still apparent and acute. Of course, numerous challenges remain and the future is paved with roadblocks which could still derail the whole project. But, for the first time in more than a thousand years, Europe is at peace and prosperous, with democratic regimes everywhere. This is, by historical standards, an exceptional achievement. At the start, EU was built on a strong intuition: by sharing the instruments and policies underpinning economic prosperity, European nations would create an irreversible situation of interdependence and solidarity where conflicts and wars of the past would become impossible. This intuition led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, then, a few years later, to the European Community. Thus in 1957 the signature of Treaty of Rome was the starting point of this unique experience of regional integration in modern History.
This was more than a simple customs union since, from the beginning, external trade policy was a full Community competence. Even the CAP, whose image to day is not universally positive, was seen, at the time, as the archetype of a common policy, bringing together the shared interests and joint actions of member states. The project was further developed and enriched in two directions. A further impetus was provided by the adoption of the Single European Act in 1986. This Act set a timeframe for launching the Single Market and reaffirmed the need for achieving Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Single Act created the framework for full economic integration, with total freedom in the flows of goods, services and capital between member states. Even today, in some service sectors, the EU is a more integrated area, from a legal and prudential viewpoint, than the United States. And second, the intrinsic solidarity between European nations was embedded into a policy of “cohesion” through which very important financial transfers took place, over a long period of time, between the richest and the poorest members. At some stage, some members have benefited for several years from such cohesion flows to an order of 5% of their GDP, significantly more than what most poor countries get from the IMF and the World Bank. Many other developments – both on institutions and policies – took place over the years. And it is clear that, to day, the EU is much more than an economic project.