Regional integration has re-emerged in the late 1980s as one of the most important developments of world politics. In 1986, Spain and Portugal acceded to the European Community. In the same year, the Single European Act was adopted with the aim of establishing a genuine common market in goods, services, capital, and labor by 1992. Six years later, the EC agreed to yet another revision of the Treaty of Rome with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on European monetary and political union. It grew again in 1995 with the admission of Austria, Finland, and Sweden. Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Turkey, Malta, and Cyprus and others are also seeking to join the EU as full members.

On the American continent, the Canada–United States Free Trade agreement was adopted in 1988. Six years later, Mexico joined the North American free-trade zone. Chile and Argentina have high hopes of acceding to the exclusive NAFTA club. In the meantime, regional integration schemes are mushrooming throughout Latin America. Similar dynamics are detectable in the Far East since the announcement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that it plans to create an ASEAN Free Trade Area.

Some thirty years earlier, a similar wave of integration swept parts of the world. In Europe, the European Community and the European Free Trade Association were created. And in Latin America, the Latin American Free Trade Association, the Andean Pact, and the Central American Common Market were launched.