Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2012
1.1 1992 has become a symbol. A symbol of change in a Europe which feels itself threatened by the economic might of America in the West and Japan in the East. 1992 really does mean that millions of people, despite wide gulfs of language and culture, and a history of often bloody conflict between them, are making one more effort of collective will to club together in the belief that the one thing they have in common, geography, is sufficient reason to disguise differences and create a powerful economic union for the greater benefit of European suppliers and consumers.