Stable support, scant initiative: European business associations and Economic and Monetary Union, 1946-1992

The article investigates the views of European business associations on the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) project between 1946 and 1992. In doing so, it places the campaign for EMU organised by the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe in the run-up to the Maastricht Treaty into its previously neglected historical context. The article argues that although European business associations supported EMU in general, their views concerning its construction evolved and differed. As a result of these divergences, they only responded to political proposals made by others, instead of pro-actively pushing a specific agenda forward.