The relaunch of the European idea

• Presentation of the White Paper by Jacques Delors
• Enlargement of the Communities to take in Spain and Portugal
• Signing of the Single European Act
• Launch of the Erasmus programme
• Fall of the Berlin Wall
• Informal European Council in Paris
• Germany reunited within the European Communities

• Home
• The origins of the European idea
• The European idea at the beginning of the 20th century
• The beginnings of European integration
• From the Six to the Nine
• Overcoming the crises
• The birth of 'political union'

In the mid-1980s, European leaders decided to break with the Euroscepticism of the previous decade. At the instigation of the triumvirate of Mitterrand, Kohl and Delors, the 'European project' was relaunched with the aim of completing the economic integration initiated in 1957. The establishment of the single market was to be the goal driving the European states and institutions for almost ten years. This period also saw the development of European policies in the fields of the environment, healthcare, and social and territorial cohesion. In 1989 the unthinkable happened, as the Berlin Wall fell, closely followed by the collapse of the entire Soviet bloc, offering Europeans the prospect of reuniting the continent.

1985