Liberalisation or protectionism for the single market? European automakers and Japanese competition, 1985–1999

In 1991, in the midst of the program to create a liberal Single European Market and in the context of a new Joint Declaration for cooperation with Japan, the European Commission brokered a private deal to restrict Japanese imports into the European Community for nearly a decade (1993–1999). These ‘Elements of Consensus’ developed from the collective efforts of European automakers and their business interest associations – the CCMC and ACEA – to shape the Community’s Common Commercial Policy and insulate themselves from the threat of Japanese competition. Drawing evidence from archival documents, this article reconstructs how European automakers lobbied the Commission for protections and how the Commission used these protections as a means for regional market liberalisation. As a result, it contributes new dimensions to scholarship on the influence of corporations in politics in general and the relationship between business and European integration in particular.