Europeanisation à la carte : negotiating Spanish accession to the European community, 1979-1985

Abstract

This thesis investigates the negotiations over Spanish accession to the European Community, which ran from 1979 to 1985. It focuses on the economic dimension of membership negotiations and explores three economic sectors (industry, fisheries, and agriculture). By adopting this approach, this thesis aims to go beyond purely political perspectives which have predominated in the literature. In doing so, this doctoral dissertation challenges traditional accounts of how Spain joined the EC. These accounts focus on the political meaning of the enlargement toward a newly established democratic country and the diplomatic disputes over the intra-Community agro-budgetary issues, which are traditionally portrayed as the main reason behind delays in achieving the overall political objective of securing the Spanish democracy through the EC membership. Instead, this thesis shows a much more complex account in which both parties struggled to Europeanise Spain according to their material interests, and often contrary to the public discourses coming from the main actors at the time. The Community made efforts to force Spain to open its highly protected industrial market, to discipline the large and disobedient Spanish fishing fleet, and to postpone Spanish incorporation into the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy. At the same time, Spanish governments were reluctant to Europeanise Spain’s economy by prioritising short-term benefits of maintaining the status quo over taking painful but necessary measures. Finally, this thesis sheds new light on the Community-Spain relations during the first half of the 1980s, the role of Spain within the EC’s southern enlargement, and the way that Spain transitioned from an authoritarian regime with a protected domestic economy to a democratic system with an economic structure comparable to other Western European states.