Deeper Integration and Voting on the Common European External Tariff

Since the 1987 Single European Act, the European Union has deepened its integration process. In the case of the determination of the common external tariff, deeper integration implies that the tariff reflected union-wide preferences. If integration is still shallow, though, the observed tariff will reflect the preferences of a pivotal national government. How governments voted, however, was not public information. This paper uses a unique dataset to test the deep vs. shallow integration hypothesis in an effort to shed light on how decisions are made in the EU. Results support the deep integration hypothesis.