Bart Stol talked about his interviews with the 'builders of the EU'. They all remember that the subject of Europe provoked little debate in the 1980s and early 1990s. At the time, there was much unanimity for being in favour of Europe but there were multiple ideas on the type of Europe they envisaged. This was evident from their attitudes towards monetary integration: was it to be a 'crowning achievement' of long-term substantive integration? Or was it to be a way to force policy integration? And did countries with balance of payments surpluses like the Netherlands and Germany then have to show solidarity with deficit countries like Italy? Or did deficit countries have to be disciplined by surplus countries? And did monetary integration then also have to be accompanied by political integration, such as a federal Europe? Stol also asked the interviewees who, in their view, really mattered in the years leading up to the Maastricht Treaty. Many mentioned the name André Szász, Managing Director at De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).
Stol then talked about the run-up to the Maastricht Treaty and the creation of the Single European Act in 1986. The purpose of that Act was mainly to remove barriers between member states in trade and the free movement of people, paving the way for a single European market from 1 January 1993.
The Act mentions the EMU as an objective, but this was not immediately noticeable when it was created. In time, the question was not about whether the EMU should happen but when and what it would look like. However, the aforementioned Szász and many other subject specialists within the DNB were fiercely opposed to EMU in the 1980s. They were quite content with the state of Europe as it was, including the connection of the guilder to the strong Deutsche mark. They ultimately lost to the proponents of the EMU: German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President François Mitterrand and European Commission President Jacques Delors.
The fall of the Wall in 1989 accelerated this. A European political union did not materialise, but the French agreed to the reunification of West and East Germany and cleverly traded that for an accelerated introduction of a single European currency. With the European Monetary Union proving inescapable, the Dutch financial and economic panel opted for full steam ahead. They made stringent rules for EMU countries that served the interests of the countries with payment surpluses as well as possible and disciplined the deficit countries.
