Single European Act

The Act was signed in February 1986 by all member governments of what was then the European Community (EC, now European Union or EU) and implemented in 1987. The Act amended the Treaty of Rome and related treaties to give institutional expression to the Union's Single Market Programme (SMP) and to reform decision-making processes.

While more ambitious integration proposals had met with objections from key member states, a consensus developed around the idea of returning to the original functionalist notion of step-by-step integration through the market and economic policy. As a result, the Act specifically recognized the SMP as a Community goal by 31 December 1992. First the Single European Act streamlined European Council decision-making procedures: majority voting was introduced on all matters linked to implementation of the huge volume of legislation related to the Single Market, the aim of which was to remove all barriers to the circulation of labour, capital, goods, and services within the EC. Second, the role of the European Parliament was strengthened through the ‘cooperation’ and ‘assent’ procedures. Third, there was a reorganization of the machinery for foreign policy cooperation among member governments (although foreign policy none the less remained outside the legal framework of the Union until the Treaty of Maastricht was implemented in 1993).