In the present stage of integration, private and public market
integration is really what the European Community is all about. A stable
security settin- itself, in part, a result of European integration - and
cooperative politics in Western Europe have enabled the creation and
maintenance of an elaborate legal system and common institutions
facilitating the unification of product markets throughout the
Community. Of course, the pervasive and incessant politicisation of
Community decision-making at the Ministerial level tends to diminish
attention for what actually happens in the Community industrial markets,
while also obscuring its profound economic impact on Europeah society.
It is precisely from the fascination with this vivid 'core' of the
European Community that this book has arisen. I have attempted to
combine empirical economic analysis, and a minimum of institutional
description, with economic theory. Access to theory has been facilitated
by the avoidance of algebraic tools, employing - only where necessary -
geometric tools. In combining the analytical traditions of international
and industrial economics, linked to a fairly detailed institutional
economics of legal arrangements and competences at the EC level, it is
hoped to provide the relevant tools to comprehend the industrial
Euromarkets.