Why did Margaret Thatcher sign up to the Single European Act Essay

Why did Margaret Thatcher sign up to the Single European Act - Essay Example These agreements included the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). The United Kingdom was a significant player in the formation of SEA; it participated in the events that led to its creation in the mid-1980s. This paper examines some of the reasons why British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher endorsed the SEA. The very advent of SEA can be traced to the mid-20th century 1945 (Cooper and Tomic, 2007). The then integration activities happened in rather steady steps, especially following the establishment of the ECSC in 1952. Gehler (2006) notes that with six founding member countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, the ECSC marked the first contemporary, multinational economic union in Europe. In 1958, when it became clear that economic integration in Europe was tenable, the member countries of the ECSC advanced their international cooperation through the ratification of the Treaties of Rome, which established the EEC and EURATOM (Basdeo, 1990; Moravcsik, 1991). According to Timur, Picone and Desimone (2011), the EEC’s primary objective was economic coordination of the region via a universal market and the elimination of trade restrictions. From 1970, the subsequent two decades saw the EEC activities deepen to include the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. The new expanded economic union was faced with political and economic problems including fuel crisis that peaked in the early 1970s and pressures from the North America that needed trade liberalization to succeed (Cooper and Tomic, 2007). The European heads of governments reacted with, perhaps the clearest intent of a common platform that would foster important economic and inter-governmental cooperation. Of particular concern in this paper was UK’s adoption of the SEA following Prime Minister Margret Thatcher’s endorsement of the Treaty