Was it directly due to the fall of the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union that the EU was formed as in to rebuild Europe? Originally, what were the EU's plans on governance in the early stages? Were they intending from the very beginning to eventually include former Eastern Bloc countries?
Hi, i'll try to give an answer to this.
By “formation of the EU in 1993” I would assume you are referring to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (effective in 1993), which did indeed formally create the European Union (EU), but just as a reform of the existing EC (European Communities).
For context, the first step of the EU, The European Steel and Coal Community (ESCS) was created by the 1951 Treaty of Paris. The European Economic Community (EEC) was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, and the current regulating treaties are usually called the Lisbon Treaties after the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon that amended both of the EUs foundational treaties. The Treaty of Lisbon also “finished” the modernization that had started slowly with the 1986 Single European Act and/or the 1992 Maastricht treaty. The EU is a very gradual process, and not clearly the response to one problem, issue, ideology or goal.
In the answer i will first illustrate some of the general political trajectory from the 1960s to 80s, and then address what the immediate objectives of the Maastricht Treaty were. I'll provide a Tl;dr of the main factors, while illustrating the general trajectory below.
Tl;dr
The pressures leading to the Maastricht Treaty can, as i will argue below, be generalised into five external pressures and five internal pressures that created a need for both economic and political reform of the EU (then: EC).
Main internal factors:
Main external factors:
Background to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty
In general, the period from the 1957 Treaty of Rome to the period around the 1986 Single European Act/1992 Maastricht Treaty was one that saw a lot stagnation in European development. The 1960s were dominated by internal conflicts and nationalist sentiment, especially in France under De Gaulle (see: The Empty Chair Crisis*) and this seeming halt in integration made some EU analysts have to change their perceptions, often taking more into account the various (conflicting) state interests. The empty chair crisis was solved by The Luxembourg Compromise, which stated that states had an informal veto in anything that affected vital national interests. This crisis is, in general, seen to be a turning point for a 10-20 year period where intergovernmentalism and state interests were more prominent in the EUs (then: ECs) trajectory.
There were talks of reform in the late 60s and early 70s, both of an economic and customs union, but they were simply unable to become anything more than ideas with the diverging and strong state interests. But that doesn’t means smaller reforms didn’t happen. With De Gaulle stepping down, the UK (along with Denmark and Ireland†) joined in the 1973 Enlargement. This enlargement is generally seen to have further divided the EU, as the UK and Denmark have consistently been some of the less integrationist members. This sort of leads to the realization that enlargement and integration can contradict each other.
Another important context is that the mid 1970s marks an end to a period of impressive EU (then: EC) area growth, where the EU had outgrown non-member states like the UK (the end of the boom was the 1973 oil price recession). Furthermore we had a change in the situation of the dollar as the reserve currency, with the Nixon-administration removing it’s convertibility to gold in 1971, resulting in more fluctuating currencies, along with recurring monetary crises before that. The EU (EC) struggled to respond to any of the external shocks in a collective manner.
These combined external and internal pressures created some impetus to make states realise reform was needed, especially strengthening the ability of the EU (then: EC) to make decisions even when members didn’t fully agree.
This lead to several gradual and smaller institutional reforms‡, like some reforms to voting, establishing the European Council, establishing direct elections to the European Parliament and expanding the scope of areas the EU (then: EC) was able to deal with. An important step was the EMS (European Monetary System), a sort of fixed-exchange-rate system for European currencies, and a compromise between pure state control and a monetary union, meant to solve some of the issues of currency fluctuations. These were still not major and necessary reforms and the period was marked by quite a lot of “EC pessimism”.
The 1980s also saw two enlargements, in 1981 with Greece joining and 1986 with Portugal and Spain joining. Part of the motivation for these enlargements were to ensure that all these countries were stabilised after their transition from authoritarian to liberal-democratic countries. This necessitated some EU policy on regional development, and the large number of states made the existing systems of voting (a lot still requiring unanimity) problematic.
Despite reforms, the EU was feeling increasingly uncompetitive on international markets by the 80s, and many blamed it on its fragmented market and regulatory policies, being difficult to navigate and seeing increased protectionist barriers even for intra-European trade. This lead to the EU (EC) growing more slowly than competitors (especially Japan and the US, also the NICs) The This was where the first suggestions of The European Union came, suggested in the European Parliament in 1981 (adopted in 1984).
National governments were also suggesting new plans for integration and this point, and industrialists were pushing for the completion of an actual single market. The member states still weren’t willing to transfer substantial political power to the European level, but the 80s saw the emergence of some consensus on the idea that larger reform was needed.
Integration would get a kick start with the 1985 Delors-commission, lead by president Jaques Delors. They bundled a lot of the various suggestions into two key reform areas: (i) a project for economic integration and (ii) a project to strengthen the political union. The commission successfully presented these as inherently linked proposals, where the success of one necessitated the other. Following this, studies were conducted and debates were held. But because of the perceived both economic problems (lack of competitiveness) and political problems (lack of efficient governance tools), the support for even quite widespread reform did exist, even if the political reforms were the more controversial ones.
Some integration was achieved in the 1986 Single European Act, that increased the use of majoritarian voting in the Council of Ministers in many areas, especially market competences, while significantly increasing the legislative competences of the European Parliament (still, though, being far junior to the Council). It also strengthened the commission and it’s policy-making initiative. Because of the increased importance of the EU in regulating market relations, it was also given increasing competency to combat economic disparities, which had increased since the southern enlargements, so the EUs (ECs) budgets were increased. Most significantly, this act set out the plan to finish the European Single Market by the end of 1992, wanting free flow of people, assets, goods and capital. But the 1986 Act left a lot of problems unsolved.
Continued below
*In the 1960s, De Gaulle was deeply in disagreement with other members over things like CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), the membership of the UK (which he opposed) and the prospect of majority voting (he wanted unanimity). When other states showed disagreement, he responded by a boycott of all EU meetings in the Council between July 1965 and January 1966, effectively blocking all decisions.
† Norway was also supposed to join, but that was rejected in the 1972 referendum. The same thing happened in the 1994 referendum when it applied to join for a second time, leading to Norway now just being an EEA, not a full EU, member.
‡ Important reforms include the 1965 Treaty Establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities, the 1970 and 1975 Treaty Amending Certain Budgetary Provisions of the Treaties and Treaty Amending Certain Financial Provisions of the Treaties, and the 1976 Act Concerning the Election of the Representatives of the Assembly by Direct Universal Suffrage.