In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 119, Heft 2, S. 366-368
Supranationalist and liberal‐intergovernmentalist theoretical accounts of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) largely ignore geopolitical factors. This article argues that geopolitical factors are of vital importance for explaining and understanding EMU. It does this by examining the role of such factors at five crucial moments of the EMU process: (1) the launching of EMU in 1988–89; (2) the uncertain year following the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989; (3) the final decisions on EMU taken at the December 1991 Maastricht summit; (4) the ratification and currency crises of 1992–93; and (5) the efforts to implement EMU after the treaty's final ratification in October 1993. A focus on geopolitics, it is argued, fits within a historical‐institutionalist account of European integration.