EUROPE AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY 1992

Completion of the European Community's single internal market by 31 December 1992 is intended to secure the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour within the Community. This article examines the 1992 project with special reference to harmonisation and variation among the twelve members of the EC, `Social Europe’ and the Social Charter, `Citizens’ Europe’, and the wider European context following the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe. It is argued that the interaction between the neo-liberalism of the single market, other EC policies, and the various historic practices of the twelve will generate highly complex outcomes for the Community as a whole and for individual members. Novel social and political forms - some of them hard even to conceptualise - may be expected. The same may be said of Eastern Europe. Throughout the continent sociologists will have an indispensible part to play in making the provenance and character of the various outcomes understandable to all concerned. © 1991, British Sociological Association Publications Limited. All rights reserved.